It doesn''t matter how good or bad you consider RTS to be. The mechanics is what matters and that is also why I brought the issue up. Now that this have been settled maybe the issue why rush is important or not to RTS games can come back?

Has anyone here played Axis and Allies? It''s an amazing turn-based WWII strategy game (originally a board game, now also marketed for the computer). Resources are an issue. As you expand, you get more resources per turn and thus the ability to get more (or more expensive) troops each turn as well. You also build up as you go (though you do start with initial forces), which means rushing in theory still applies. But it works perfectly. Someone who has played Axis and Allies tell me how to make it into an RTS.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
It doesn''t matter how good or bad you consider RTS to be. The mechanics is what matters and that is also why I brought the issue up. Now that this have been settled maybe the issue why rush is important or not to RTS games can come back?

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I will answer the question for myself then Mr. Smarty Pants.

Answer: I couldn''t imagine a fun RTS without some from of pressure or "rush" from the other players. Therefore, for me to have fun in a RTS there needs to be some from of rush.

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Original post by Critical_Waste
I do not consider an RTS a good "Wargame". This is why I do not consider the Anon poster to be correct. However I agree with Dauntless''s assesment which considers Wargames.

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Excellent point. I think many people see RTS''s and wargames as being close brothers, while I see them more like near cousins. There are some similarities to be sure, but enough differences to trip people up if they expect one genre or the other.

I think a lot of the grief that some players have about RTS games is that they expect more realistic warfare conditions, and become disillusioned when the kinds of strategies and tactics that are used in real life don''t seem to jibe with what RTS offer (if the RTS game even offers game play elements which mimic warfare realistically).

As for me being more verbose on the forums...I''m probably too verbose Sometimes there''s something to be said for being concise or laconic.

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

Hmm, I guess I better outline the whole argument again to show that complaints from the anti-rush faction are at best misguided.

One argument from the anti-rush camp is that the rush is simply hard ''rock, paper, scissors'' right from the start of the game. Yet if this were the case, even expert players would lose to rushes frequently. But that doesn''t happen. Obviously there is some way to combat rush strategies without disadvantaging oneself significantly against alternative strategies. The fact that almost every RTS game provides the defender with a marked advantage from the start (not even including the distance factor) reinforces the likelihood of such anti-rush strategies existing.

Additionally, saying that there are only very limited ways to counter a strategy (and hence there is no strategic thought, just PSR) implies that one has considered all strategic options. But that is evidently not the case, and again, no examples have been given to support this.

Inmate writes :

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Via my example, I was trying to show the type of rush that is a problem. Those early game rushes where a critical errors has been made in the first few decisions. Granted, a screw-up in the beginning can hamper you later. For example, if you close the choke-hold to prevent rushing, you cut yourself off from expansion which IS important early in the game. I made the conscious decision that I''d rather be able to bitch about being cheaprushed then bitch about shooting myself in the foot.

STOP. Don''t reply challenging me on my gameplay tactics, this isn''t a BLIZZARD-STARCRAFT-STRATEGY Messageboard system.

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I showed you why that kind of rush wasn''t a problem for those concerned with strategy (page 2). Further strategic guidance : Closing the choke-hold to prevent rushing does not cut one off from one''s expansion - many terran buildings can fly, and the barracks at the chokepoint can be used in the manner of a drawbridge. A command centre can be built in safety and then flown to the expansion, backed up with terran siege tanks planted in the safe zone. Admit it - you never really thought about blocking the choke-point. Neither did I, of course, but I at least made the effort to look for anti-rush strats before bitching about the rush.. STOP. If you don''t want to be challenged on your gameplay tactics, then stop posting bogus tactical examples. This example has been dealt with, leaving you with 0 examples to back up your position.

Sandman wrote:

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My point is that although many players don''t think rushing is a problem, there are many players who clearly do think it is a problem.

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Sure, I know this to be true. However, I believe that the vast majority of people who think rushing is a problem have misguided reasons for complaining against it. If the reason given was that they dislike conflict in the first 15 or so minutes, I would have no problem with their opinion. But instead they want to slur a number of good strategic games by insinuating or even directly stating that the rush (or what they consider to be a rush) removes strategy.

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What would be nice is a system which enables the casual players to at least get *some* enjoyment out of a game with the more hardcore players, even if they do end up getting their arses thoroughly kicked. Most casual players can accept losing, but they''d like to at least get started before they get beaten. Telling them to ''Go learn how to play properly n00b'' just emphasizes the arrogant attitude that many hardcore players have towards anyone who doesn''t spend at least 6 hours a day playing the game, and another 4 hours trawling through strategy forums.

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As I stated in my last post (page 3, the one you were replying to) there are different game modes which are targeted to this purpose. There are also custom maps for such people, and always the opportunity for player-defined rules. Yet still many people with set views about how a game should be played jump into hardcore games, get smashed, and start bitching.

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In my opinion, the wallin strategy is rather abstract - it doesn''t really seem logical in any conventional military terms. Sure, placing a barrier between ranged troops and melee troops makes sense, but using your production and supply centers as a barrier? It''s slightly more lateral thinking than logical thinking. In my opinion, the game could have a much broader range of ''anti rush'' strategies available, making full use of terrain features and unit positioning, so the emphasis is on smart and quick - and original - thinking rather than reading about an abstract counter on a strategy website.

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The goal of most RTS games is to promote emergent strategies, rather than trying to simulate the real world. Chess has even less bearing on real military strategy, yet it is still a great game of strategy. Do you really want all RTS games to contain only "conventional military" strategies? A lot of the fun in RTS games is in creating one''s own strategies given what''s available. Good players will use terrain and unit positioning to best extent - I didn''t think it worth mentioning at the time. You''d like strategies to be "original", yet you criticise them for being "abstract" and requiring "lateral thinking".. Good strategies do not magically appear on websites - someone has to come up with them. And there is always the possibility that they can be bettered or improved, or defeated. That''s part of the strategic challenge.

Dauntless - I think essentially you want a different type of game from conventional RTS games. I think most RTS-makers only want their game to be realistic in terms of being able to have big bloody battles and cool stuff like siege warfare where the player has some domain knowledge. Weird stuff like ''town portal scrolls'' is obviously not realistic, but from a strategic point of view really does add to a game. IIRC, your view of strategy is that is encompasses only real world military strategy (there was a thread on this a few months back I think). Many RTS games do not adhere closely to that definition so it is doubtless that you will be disappointed on many occasions. I enjoy hard-core wargames as well as RTS games, but I think you''re selling RTS games short if you believe that they only comprise a more simple subset of strategies that real wargames contain. My personal theory is that true wargames are just as vulnerable to killer strats as RTS games (if not, more so) - but because of the much smaller player-base and longer game times strategic evolution doesn''t move nearly as quickly as with RTS games.

From MichaelT:

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So, I really don''t agree on the point that you need to scout because most of the time you learn your opponent and what people most often prefer to do. It basically is as boring as finding out how the computer works and beat it every time.

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Riiight, so all you need to do is know what anyone is going to do. Unfortunately, people often mix up their strategies, and there are so many people playing online that figuring out what they are going to do is very difficult. If you hold off a rush you typically have the upper hand - but certainly not a guaranteed victory. Scouting is key to securing wins at high level.

From Kylotan:

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In general, games need to appeal to more than just ''good players''.

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Yes, which is why there are map editors, multiple game modes, and various game settings designed to allow players to setup games according to their liking.

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Because it magnifies a tiny difference in decision-making into a massive advantage.

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Given the scale of the game, it''s a big difference. And if it was only a tiny difference, given the advantage as defender, you should easily be able to negate it.

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Examples are pointless. No-one is saying that rushes are unbeatable. What we are saying is that defeating them often requires choosing from a very limited subset of all the options potentially available to you. Merely posting the "what you should have done" response to an example I could provide doesn''t prove anything.

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If you have no examples, then where are you getting the basis for your argument? The "what you could have done" response I make is intended to show that you had not explored all strategic options - and so could never make the claim that one was forced into "choosing from a very limited subset of all the options potentially available".

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The game should offer obvious and emergent ways to combat threads that don''t involve you having to consult a web forum in order to get the ''optimal response''.Isn''t it just rock-paper-scissors where you choose your move based on what you read online?

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The alternative is to use your brain to try and figure out a good response. That''s what a strategist does.. Failing that you can try to figure out what other strategists have come up with - forums are good for this. I don''t think any responses are guaranteed optimal, so of course you can still try to improve on any responses you do read about. Even if all you did was copy the strategies of others, PaperScissorsRock is still a lot more fun than your suggestion of plain Rock.

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I don''t think I was ever defeated using the ''NOD Bike Swarm'' on the original Command and Conquer, given enough resources. Can it be beaten? Of course. Was there an obvious way to do so? Not really. Sure, I never played against the best C+C players, but I shouldn''t need to.

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So what''s your argument? That there should be an obvious way to beat every strategy? Btw this ''NOD Bike Swarm'' doesn''t sound like a rush to me. It may be a strong strategy, although way back in those days anyone who half-understood resource use could hammer others with practically any unit. I saw a lot of players heavily abusing NOD''s 250 credit turret until it was patched. There are always strong strategies. The fun is in figuring them out - and figuring out how to beat them.

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I suppose your argument is that the best execution of a given plan should always win, whereas I would prefer the player with the most ability to adapt to win. I would prefer RTS games that played more like Chess or Magic: The Gathering.

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My argument is that the best strategist should win. The best strategists should always be one step ahead of the pack, figuring out better ways to win before others. Those who only copy good strategies are always behind. Adaptation is very important due to limited information (chess has no real adaptation, since at any point you know everything about the state of the game), and one of the best games of adaptation is Kohan - very heavily random, although you have to be extremely good to beat the best players. Of course, Kohan has its rush builds too.

Maybe it isn''t that the players don''t have enough information, but that they have too much. At any given time in a typical RTS game, you can estimate fairly well what the other players'' situations are. Knowing that everyone starts off on the same foot and must progress in the same way most of the time does mean less ''strategy'' than your typical WW2 or other real-life battle. In these, the commander or whatever is generally working off of very little information, only knowing his troops'' status and positions most of the time, and possibly the direction where the opposing forces are located. The commander certainly cannot say "Hmm...I''ve been playing for 5 minutes versus a Zerg player, I should probably expect an attack pretty soon from zerglings through my base''s entrance."

But of course RTS does not stand for real-life strategy. Remember that it is a game. Chess might be an abstraction of real life, but it is bound by strictly defined rules. Strategy follows from these rules. Herein lies the problem: While both the RTS player and the commander suffer from imperfect vision, the player has much game rule-based information on which to formulate strategies such as build orders and rush tactics. On the other hand, the commander must guess a lot at his enemy''s strength, etc. to gauge whether to make a strike, and cannot be assured of the technology that the enemy will have (maybe they have mega rocket launchers or something that no one has seen before.)

This does not answer the main question, though, which is how to make rushes less detrimental to game play. As someone pointed out earlier, even if you advance the players'' forces to, say, what they should have after five minutes of play, there still will still always be a tactic that takes advantage of this game-based information. It would be silly to say that the rules in the game should be abolished as well, as they are what makes the game distinctive and also allows for design considerations (balancing, etc.) The question as I see it is how to make the armies balanced but at the same time not give away information implicitly based on the game rules.

One option could be to change the startup conditions every game, so that:
1. Every army starts out with just x workers and a Command Center (StarCraft)
2. Every army starts out with what they should have after a couple of minutes.
3. Every army starts out with what they should have after a couple of minutes, but with emphasis on either attack, defense, technology, or recon.

These and options switch things up enough so that strategies should be dynamic rather than planned and would encourage different styles of play. At the very least, it will knock players off their feet for a minute while they figure out what they have (of course this might be disadvantageous to the noob.) Rushing would be more illogical because you just cannot know what cards the other players are holding.

I also like the distance solution, as well as random maps with height, etc. These are variables that create more strategy and less predictability. In other words, they give the player less information with which to base decisions on. This in a sense creates a more pure strategy game, which many here seem to desire.

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original quote by ARgus
Dauntless - I think essentially you want a different type of game from conventional RTS games. I think most RTS-makers only want their game to be realistic in terms of being able to have big bloody battles and cool stuff like siege warfare where the player has some domain knowledge. Weird stuff like ''town portal scrolls'' is obviously not realistic, but from a strategic point of view really does add to a game. IIRC, your view of strategy is that is encompasses only real world military strategy (there was a thread on this a few months back I think). Many RTS games do not adhere closely to that definition so it is doubtless that you will be disappointed on many occasions. I enjoy hard-core wargames as well as RTS games, but I think you''re selling RTS games short if you believe that they only comprise a more simple subset of strategies that real wargames contain. My personal theory is that true wargames are just as vulnerable to killer strats as RTS games (if not, more so) - but because of the much smaller player-base and longer game times strategic evolution doesn''t move nearly as quickly as with RTS games.

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I don''t think RTS games necessarily have a smaller subset of considerations per se. I just think that they concentrate on different things than a pure wargame would. My interests have always tended to be towards more realistic (or at least plausible) games, and usually wargames limit their scope of focus so that they can concentrate more deeply on a few things. RTS games, in general, abstract warfare while adding nation-building elements to the game play. So what they lack in more minute tactical details, they make up for in nation building considerations.

I for one find the nation-building aspect to be a bit tedious, and yet I also realize its importance in warfare. I''d just tend to abstract the nationbuilding aspect more, and focus more on combat.

I think you''re right though, RTS games do have strategy, but it''s a different kind, much like you pointed out between chess and warfare. I like chess, though I have to admit I''m not very good at it. I even like games like Mancala and Othello(reversi) which have strong strategic elements to them as well. But I''ve always been more fascinated by war.

And a part of it isn''t even the strategic considerations, but the human aspect. One thing I''ve never liked about most RTS games is the cannon fodder syndrome. I also don''t like the God-like control a player has over his troops. In essence, I want to create a game which makes the player come closer to all the considerations that a real battlefield commander has to face. Not just the strategems, but more human things like rallying troops, dealing with morale, and fatigued troops. Somehow the human element has been lost from wargames and RTS games, and I''d like to somehow put it back in. Since I was a little boy, I listened to stories of my grandfather and my great uncles (who all fought in WWII) on my dad''s side. And what impressed me about fighting in a war wasn''t the actual tactics or strategies so much as the human element and courage (or folly) displayed.

So strategy is one consideration of both wargames and RTS games, but I think they differ in what they concentrate on. In my own design, I''m leaning away even from wargames in that I''m trying to focus on the human element. I sometimes refer to my game as a warfare simulator, but I think an even better term would be a leadership simulator.

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

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Original post by fat_tony_123
Maybe it isn''t that the players don''t have enough information, but that they have too much. At any given time in a typical RTS game, you can estimate fairly well what the other players'' situations are. Knowing that everyone starts off on the same foot and must progress in the same way most of the time does mean less ''strategy'' than your typical WW2 or other real-life battle. In these, the commander or whatever is generally working off of very little information, only knowing his troops'' status and positions most of the time, and possibly the direction where the opposing forces are located. The commander certainly cannot say "Hmm...I''ve been playing for 5 minutes versus a Zerg player, I should probably expect an attack pretty soon from zerglings through my base''s entrance."

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Yeah, I think you''ve hit the nail on the head there, that''s a good summing-up.

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One option could be to change the startup conditions every game, so that:
1. Every army starts out with just x workers and a Command Center (StarCraft)
2. Every army starts out with what they should have after a couple of minutes.
3. Every army starts out with what they should have after a couple of minutes, but with emphasis on either attack, defense, technology, or recon.

These and options switch things up enough so that strategies should be dynamic rather than planned and would encourage different styles of play. At the very least, it will knock players off their feet for a minute while they figure out what they have (of course this might be disadvantageous to the noob.) Rushing would be more illogical because you just cannot know what cards the other players are holding.

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It''ll be crucial to make sure that all these options are balanced; that is, so you won''t be getting attack vs. technology or something unbalanced to one player.

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Original post by TerranFury
Has anyone here played Axis and Allies? It''s an amazing turn-based WWII strategy game (originally a board game, now also marketed for the computer). Resources are an issue. As you expand, you get more resources per turn and thus the ability to get more (or more expensive) troops each turn as well. You also build up as you go (though you do start with initial forces), which means rushing in theory still applies. But it works perfectly. Someone who has played Axis and Allies tell me how to make it into an RTS.

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I played Axis and Allies waaaaay back in the day when it was a boardgame...and not from Hasbro (or whoever made those humongous boxes....I think it was originally an Avalon Hill game). The original version including an Eastern theatre which made it far cooler than the newer European-only version, and made playing the Americans or Brits especially tricky, and make playing the Russians even easier (I always wondered why they didn''t include China as a playable entity...even though they operated in only one theatre, they did tie down lots of Japanese troops from attacking Russia). It was a very addicting game though, and had an interesting tech tree system.

Unfortunately, the game became quite predictable. If Germany couldn''t knock out Russia in the first year and a half, it was game over for Germany. The funny thing is that if Russia got really lucky, it could knock out Germany in the first year. It would have to take good luck from both the English and Russian players, but it was possible, and they both utilized rush tactics. If the Russians built up a stockpile of infantry the first turn, it could fend off a German blitzkrieg pretty well, and have a good chance of a counter assault. It had a low succes rate (maybe one in five times), but it was still amusing to see.

I''m not sure if AAA would translate well to real time. Part of the fun was calculating what had to be done turn by turn. I''ve never been a fan of alternate-turn games, but I think simultaneous-turn games can be just as realistic (if not more so) than real time games (simultaneous turns are when you plan out all the moves of your troops, as does your opponent, and then each player simultaneously moves and acts out what the troops do....sort of a hybrid turn/real time system). I think a simultaneous turn system might work, but then you have the problem of having say, English, American and Russian units all attacking at once, giving 3-1 odds...so that would have to be worked out somehow (even though it''s more realistic...afterall, D-Day was a combined American, English-Commonwealth and Canadian effort)

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

There is an EXTREMELY SIMPLE method to prevent the current rush issues and turns games back to strategy:

Units have an endurance. When first created they are at around 20% endurance or so. As time passes, so does their endurance. Whenever a unit moves it loses a fair amount of endurance. As a unit continues to move without stopping it losses an increasingly large amount of endurance per second. Whenever a unit fights it loses endurance. A unit''s endurance determines how effective it is. A unit with 0% endurance would be incapacitated for several rounds and its armor would be set to -10 during this time. A unit with 100% endurance could go into a frenzy during battle and cause greatly increased damage, though he would lose endurance at a massively increased rate.

This completely changes everything. Since units would have to occasionally "rest" on their march towards enemy bases scouting actually becomes a major issue. People would no longer use scouts just to determine what unit they should build, or where resources are, but as actual battle planners. If you see an enemy coming forward you can rush an army out to meet them about halfway. They will march their exhausted army into your army that has been sitting their waiting and be slaughtered.

This would force the enemy to actually scout paths and use a bit of intelligence when attacking. Not to mention every loss you take is magnified 50x with endurance. Since units start at 20% and it might take 5-10 minutes to get them to 100%, you can''t afford to just pump out units and march them out. Even a peasant could kill a soldier at 1% endurance.

This would provide for countless cool special abilities and units:

"Berserker- always attacks in frenzied mode if endurance > 60% and endurance decrease is reduced."

"Rest facilities- all units near rest facilities recover endurance at two times the normal rate."

"Warrior of the Fox - weak but fast unit with no endurance lost for movement, but 5x the normal endurance lost during battle."

"Burly Ogre - Very strong unit that loses 10x the normal endurance during movement, but can eat units of medium size or smaller during combat to gain endurance during combat."

Give units endurance, give units "levels/experience point rewards" and you have a game that changes everything imo.