Hello all, The topic of RTS(real time strategy) games is something that has been discussed many time by many people each with various subtopic in mind. But I have a different purpose in mind it has occurred to me and probably to others of you that RTS games are fun but only for short lengths of time (under 2 hours). There also many ideas that while of interest to players aren’t suitable for an RTS game. At the same time there empire building strategy games which while similar in some ways to RTS games are vary different end of the spectrum these take many hours to play and have concepts that would not work in an a traditional RTS game. So the thought occurred to me there must be a whole new genre waiting in between RTS and EBG (empire building game). I decided this was the perfect topic for this forum, and so I think it would be an interesting idea is if we all came together as a community to develop and discuss a framework for this new genre. I'm not asking for game specific ideas but I feel that if we work together we can develop the concepts and ideas necessary to make these a new an exciting genre. For now will call this genre RTE (real time empires) until someone can think of a better name. I'll start the ball rolling by throwing out a few ideas. Strategic resources - uncommon resources necessary to build certain units and buildings. These resources would have to be claimed and controlled by player to be used they would also be available to trade to other players. As such having access to these resources would be vital to success and become important factor when the player is planning their Strategy. Examples Horses = needed to build mounted units or horse ploughed fields. Diamonds = needed to build high level manufacturing buildings. Research and Development - The development of new technologies, buildings and units. Also the ability to develop improvements to existing technologies and counter measures to the opponents technologies. Settlements - Having additional settlements would be a necessary part of acquiring new resources, territory, improving your infrastructure and encouraging population growth. Trade and Diplomacy - players would have to work with other nations to succeed by acquring needed resources as well as other nessary diplomatic actions. ----------------------------------------------------- Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades Current Design project Chaos Factor Design Document [edited by - TechnoGoth on November 3, 2003 9:42:59 PM]

Have you played Settlers recently?

This is not entirely what your question is asking for, but your logic for the question is based on something I would like to address....

You say that tradition RTS games are not fun to play for more than 2 hours... I think that this is partially due to the fact that in every game that I have played, that I can currently think of, a player will easily max out the technology in the game at around the same time... I believe that this is part of the reason why longer games aren''t as fun. You get to a certain point and it is literally impossible to make your army any stronger. You have reached the max units, max technological improovments (that you deem of worth) and have all variables concerning the units maxed out. This never happens in an empire situation... if there is a time when all of the players have reached the max of their civ, the game becomes, ideally, very very ballanced... most of the time, if the ame has lasted this long already, the teams are pretty fair. Now that nobody can make any more advancements also makes the game even more fair... It gets kind of borring at this point.

I think that a key element in making a game like what you are suggesting fun, the maximum should either not exist, or should not be encountered in a normal game...

Hope this makes sense....

Dwiel

Technogoth,

Damm...
We need to talk. You and I are on the same wavelength. I started a thread called What is real? Some of your ideas, and this is the first time this has happened are the same as mine. Diplomacy and trade are key factors or should be key factors in RTS games, or Empire games. I am not trying to take over your thread in any way but if you get a chance check out What is Real? Here are some of my thoughts...

1. Different paths to success - Economic, Scientific, Cultural
2. Civilian Happiness -
3. Harvesting Special Resources- ex oil, uranium, etc
4. Sieze fire mode
5. Domestic improvements - roads, bridges etc
6. Unique units- German Zepplings, Paratroop tactics etc.
7. minor tribes or factions- completeley computer controlled to trade with or conquer.
8. Auto civilian Production - to take away micro-management.
9. International trade and Domestic trade
10. Completely different technologies per faction- ex: Radar, outdoor lighting invention etc.

quote: Original post by artificialintel18
Technogoth,

Damm...
We need to talk. You and I are on the same wavelength. I started a thread called What is real? Some of your ideas, and this is the first time this has happened are the same as mine.

You need to get out more, nothing really new.

quote:
1. Different paths to success - Economic, Scientific, Cultural
2. Civilian Happiness -
3. Harvesting Special Resources- ex oil, uranium, etc
4. Sieze fire mode
5. Domestic improvements - roads, bridges etc
6. Unique units- German Zepplings, Paratroop tactics etc.
7. minor tribes or factions- completeley computer controlled to trade with or conquer.
8. Auto civilian Production - to take away micro-management.
9. International trade and Domestic trade
10. Completely different technologies per faction- ex: Radar, outdoor lighting invention etc.

Have you played a lot of TBS and RTS from the last year? A few from 2 years back also incorporate almost everysingle one of those. 1501 AD and CIV III come to mind right off the top.

Although, keep em comming, you are bound to think of something new

How many people regularly play multiplayer matches for more than two hours, or even have the time?

Most RTS''s deliberately have a shallower tech tree. They lend themselves to faster games, which is what most people play. A long tech tree makes it much more difficult to balance the game, since you can''t count on all X players being on tier Y of the tree at any given time. Also, techs would either have to take a long time to research (which opens up its own can of worms) or there would have to be a lot of them; that would mean that each individual technological advancement would probably mean less.

Also, looking at the lists other people have posted, that is a metric ton of things for people to keep track of in real time. Unless you have very-good-borderline-on-psychic-AI it would be a hurricane of micromanagement for the player. I mean, people already have enough trouble avoiding a rush in most RTS games, and they only have to worry about building stuff, getting resources, and moving units around. Adding all this other stuff in... I don''t know who could keep track of all that in real time, unless time didn''t matter; i.e. the maps and certain actions took long enough and events were vague enough in intensity that fast management didn''t matter. If that was true, though, then the game would be extremely unresponsive.

You might want to change that into "turn-based empires."

Fingers:
Settlers is nothing like what I'm talking about, Settlers is a simulation game it’s essentially the same as sim city or the sims.

Tazzel3D:
Yes the time aspect is a factor as well as the unit maximization, generally in RTS games both players max out technology and units quickly and send endless waves back and forth at each other. While in EBG I've rarely had everyone at the same tech level or having the same number of units but then that’s all part of those games, finding your balance between production, units and technology. While RTE I see as having large complex tech trees, as such it would be unlikely that anyone would have access to all technologies. Instead players would either have broad low levels of technology or specialize in a specific area. As for the units I think the addition of maintenance cost would prevent players from reaching the unit limit. That being said I agree that unit caps are rather like arbitrary walls; sure they have technical reasons for being there as well as balancing issues, but I also think that if possible they should be left out of RTE.

artificialintel18:

Yes, many of your ideas are well suited for RTE games most of them I don't think would work well in a RTS game or not as well as they could. A few I disagree with though
8 - I personally like to have micro management it really depends on how much. I find games that auto manage end up becoming dull and unsatisfactory since you don't have a feel of any control over the game play.
10- I have thought of this before and I feel it really depends on the actual game and whether there are different factions or a single faction that players can choose to play.

Joviex:

Both those games are EBG (empire building games) the goal of this thread is to develop something between EBG and RTS.

Beige:
No ones is saying the game has to be finished in a single sitting. If an RTE game took 5 hours to play it could be finished over the course of several days. Also as far as most people not playing for more then 2hrs that not true, I know people who waste whole days playing computer games and I have played board games with friends that last much longer the 2 hrs I only played one for aobut 10 hours straigt with four of my friends. Also I disagree that balancing should realy on have all players at equal levels of technology. Afterall If there X players the game should be balanced even if they are all on diffrent levels of technology. Since they got there for essentialy one of 2 reasons devoting more resources to R&D thus leaving them weaker in other areas or they are better planners or players.

I'm weary to give an example of the kind of what I see an RTE being similar to, since I don't want people to focus on that single example rather then the potential genre. But here it is anyway.

World War II - European Theatre:
Now I know there hundreds of games based on this but bare with me. If you wanted to accurately portray this war from the point of view of nation then you really need an RTE game. It is to broad a conflict then can be accurately portrayed in an RTS since RTS games really just focus on single battle. While at the same time an EBG are to far removed from the battlefield and so they can't cope with the dynamic and fluid nature of the conflict. But I can see RTE game being able to portray this conflict all to well. The player would be able to research and develop new weapons and technology to wage war. Seize control of vital resources and as well as making the vital diplomatic alliance necessary to secure victory. Could you as England stop the German advance? Could you convince The US to support you or will they ally themselves with Germany? While at the same time the player has protect their infrastructure and maintain the moral of the citizens.

Now bare in mind this was just a basic example it is not meant to represent RTE games as a whole or in part. It should be used for educational purposes only.

I think people should have a few ideas now so don't be shy or worry about idea poaching and lets develop RTE's together.


-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document



[edited by - TechnoGoth on November 4, 2003 2:18:18 AM]

I want to make a comment about the length of time spent on a multiplayer game. Right now I'm playing a game called Europa Universalis II, which can be defined as "Real time empire building game". I and a group of other people play on the same savegame every Friday, and then straight from 18.00 in the afternoon to 02.00 in the night. The only thing that breaks our experience of reliving European history from the 15th to 19th centuries are the occasional crashes that follow. With this speed a single game takes several months to finish, but it's worth it. I play Russia and try to out-perform history.

[edited by - Unwise owl on November 4, 2003 5:49:14 AM]

well i''m not a hard core rts or ebg, at least we call me a casual, i have simply no time to play game this length (even rts) i have to broke a game in several quick part.
maybe this situation lead to that i couldn''t capture the essance of the topic (i would when i will buy my own house and spend more time in game of that length) but one thing strike me is to create a situation which bring "oscillation", player should not be able to strongly balance their tactic, fo ex, the player as something like 3;3;3 if he want to get more in attack he has 5;3;1, this mean that he had a finite amount of ressource which doesnot change that he have to distribute and manage through activities, i take it from various ex from real world and the dinamic of complex system, and is suppose to prevent suprematie and forward escape of power (which lead to a caped situation)

is this could help???

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The problem with these games is that they try and compress the depth and breadth of games like Civ3 into a one-two hour play session. This quite simply doesn't work. Look at Empire Earth and Rise of Nations - both were made by teams of some of the best developers in the industry, and yet failed to truly capture either the panic of an RTS or the depth of a TBS.

Empire games have to be played slowly, with time to think and consider each move; each unit created; each diplomatic move. Taking away that time to think and replacing it with manic RTS-style mouse clicking does not create a super game.

Rise of Nations takes about an hour to play a game (I haven't played with the Conquer the World mode, but I've heard it's much better). In this time you go from spearmen to helicopters. Units are upgraded so quickly you can't appreciate their subtleties. A comparable time span and Civ3 is around 10-15 hours.

Like most compression, this type of time compression is very lossy. The more it gets compressed, the more detail is lost.

On the other end, Command and Conquer and the *craft games have very focused tech trees, and very little time compression, which creates a nicer experience. Also, C&C games tend to be much shorter .

Age of Empires strikes the sweet spot. Enough depth to take your time, and enough speed that manic clicking is a valid way to play. Also, Age of Empires 2 in the best RTS ever made.

So pick one. Make a deep, turn-based empire-builder and let your players savour every move. Or, create a fast-paced RTS for some action-style thrills. Both are valid. But combining them often results in the worst of both, not the best.

EDIT: spelling

[edited by - ze_jackal on November 4, 2003 3:19:52 PM]