My main beef with RTS games is that they aren''t really many good wargames out there. I think that RTS games try to pass themselves off as wargames, but really, they have very very little to do with what battlefield commanders have to worry about. In my opinion, most RTS games have as much to do about simulating the combat leader experience as much as chess, go or backgammon do (all classic strategy games often practiced by generals, but not having much direct crossover).

I''m really waiting for the day when AI is advanced enougn to have the player delegate command and authority to AI generals underneath him, so that the player does not have to keep his mind so much on tactics or grand tactics, and can actually formulate strategy as the game progresses. Moreover, I''m sick of RTS games which overly rely on resource modeling as a part of the gameplay. Actually, let me rephrase that. I''m sick of games that require players to build a nation from the ground up. To me, when games do that, I think it thins the gameplay feeling by splitting gameplay between warfare and nation-building. Generally speaking (barring Napoleon and Julius Caesar) most battlefield commanders have not also dictated the economic, social and political affairs of a nation.

So I prefer games like the Close Combat series of games, Myth, or even Total War compared to most ''RTS'' games out there since they evoke a much more militaristic bent. And of course the pure wargames like Antietam, Cossacks, Gettysburg and others are nice too.

My main gripe with RPG games is that it seems that most designers are focusing on the d20 system from WoTC, or are designing games that are about as evolved as PPRPG''s were in the late 70''s. It amazes me how little many CRPG designers know about their PPRPG antecedents. I think they are ignoring a vast treasure trove of resources by not exploring all the territory already explored in PPRPG''s of the past. And I''m not just talking about genres or settings, but even dice mechanics and rules systems.

I just picked up Empires Dawn of the Modern World about 2 weeks ago and while I am not saying this is the greatest game out there, it is definetly an improvement over Empire Earth. Truly unique armies for each civilization (not everyone has spitfires only UK). Germany has the V1 missle, America has the B29 bomber. I think companies are looking at making these games more realistic therefore evolving at the same time. I still think that a lot more can be done to make these games more strategic and at the same time improving the overall satisfaction of the game. Maybe a new genre needs to be created since most developers are trying to create a mix between Traditional RTS and TB games. Technogoth you once mentioned a new genre to be called Real time Empire games. Maybe you should continue to expand on this idea. What do you think?

quote:

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Original post by Dauntless
My main beef with RTS games is that they aren''t really many good wargames out there. I think that RTS games try to pass themselves off as wargames, but really, they have very very little to do with what battlefield commanders have to worry about. In my opinion, most RTS games have as much to do about simulating the combat leader experience as much as chess, go or backgammon do (all classic strategy games often practiced by generals, but not having much direct crossover).

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I agree and this is probably closer to what I was trying to express in my previous post but I got sidetracked with my graphics soapbox

quote:

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Original post by artificialintel18
Maybe a new genre needs to be created since most developers are trying to create a mix between Traditional RTS and TB games. Technogoth you once mentioned a new genre to be called Real time Empire games. Maybe you should continue to expand on this idea. What do you think?

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I think it would be a great idea. I''ve been designing my game that I call an RTS to have more of this type play. Essentially mixing an RTS like Cossacks and Civilization. Providing many different methods of winning the game - be it Diplomacy or Strategy and Tactics or how about winning a game with a extensive supply chain?

To everyone else, I agree that there have been changes in RTS games overall but IMHO, nothing of significance. I have C&C: Generals and RoN installed on my comp and I have given both of them another shot this past week... I found myself playing Empire: Wargame of the Century and dreaming of a Realtime game just like Empire with a bit more depth and of course - better graphics.


Dave Dak Lozar Loeser
The WM_NULL message performs no operation. An application sends the WM_NULL message if it wants to post a message that the recipient window will ignore. - MSDN

If I ever have more freetime from school, I'll be getting back to work on my wargame. Unfortunately, I'm on the compressed school schedule plan, and taking 15-18 hours every semester, none of them filler fluff. Add in the fact that I haven't been to school in 8+ years, and that I've switched from a psych major to a comp. sci major, and hopefully you'll see why I don't visit these forums as much anymore Ah well, at least after this semester I have a better understanding of C, and I'm looking forward to the AI class I'll be taking next year (God I feel sorry for all the students in there with no programming experience whatsoever, I could tell how utterly lost they were).

But I digress...my wargame was basically about making the player feel as close as possible to what an actual combat commander would have to deal with on the battlefield. In a nutshell I've taken away the 3 things most common to RTS games:

1) No godlike access to your units. Just as in real life, you have to establish communication links to your units. No "I can see it on the board, therefore I can click on it and give it orders" stuff.

2) No godlike control of your units. Again, even assuming you have a communication link to your units (via a link to a Units's AI Commander), it doesn't mean they're going to follow your orders.

3) YOU the player are represented on the field of battle by an Avatar. Lose the Avatar and you haven't automatcially lost the game, but there's a good chance you will since now the chain of command has to be re-organized meaning a time of confusion will reign over your forces. I believe that the player, who is in most RTS games, some kind of incorporeal god-like entity, creates a psychological distance from his own forces. Place the player himself on the battlefield, and I think this will change his way of thinking about formulating the battle. (I've even toyed with the idea of a 100% 3d first person perspective interface...where you see exactly what the general himself would see including all th trauma of war).

There's many more changes, but I feel these to be the most crucial. There's many other changes as well:
1) It would be a hybrid RT and TB system. The beginning of every turn is when certain calculations are made, and the player has an opportunity to give Orders to his AI Commanders. When all the Orders have been given, RT starts, and the AI agents are left with their Orders they've been given, the Directives they've been given, and their own intelligence to guide them through unpredictable spots (and the player can attempt to intervene if something totally unexpected happens).

2) It will have a complex hierarchical AI Commander system in which AI agents control your forces...so that you don't directly access units to give them orders, but instead pass "directives" (I call them Plans of Action, POA) which are guidelines for what the AI agents should do. Directives are distinct from Orders in that Orders tell a Commander precisely what to do, while Directives tell a Commander under what modes he should should operate in, and certain conditional modifiers (should he be aggressive, defensive, hasty, cautious, etc.).

3) Logistics will be extremely important. Not just in manufacturing new combat units (which will be handled as replacements and upgrades, rather than what I call the "Pizza ordering" method used in RTS games), but in shipping and transporting those goods to the frontlines. This implies that combat units have an "endurance" of sorts, which is entirely true. In other words, make sure your army has food, fuel, and ammunition to last the battle.

4) Communications and Intelligence will be extremely important (it's possible that a scout unit can see enemy formations, but if it doesn't have a link to it's commanding AI leader or any other leader through the Chain of Command, then you the player will never know of it).

5) Resource building will be handled by the political government of your side. You as a general can put in requests which (hopefully) your politicians will heed, but that's the best you can do. On the plus side, in multiplayer mode, you can create your own "faction", and dictate what kind of political assembly you have (is it like Stalin Russia or a more democratic nation?) which in turn influences that nation's proclivity for building things.

6) Units are standardized, and are composite structures. What I mean by this is that you don't create ONE tank, but rather a platoon or company of tanks. Furthermore, you can design your composite units (which I call Clusters). So you could have a mechanized infantry unit composed of 4 Infantry Fighting Vehicles + 4 platoons of light infantry, which can fight as one discrete unit, or as seperate Clusters.

7) Control of Clusters is done via the AI Commanders normally, though the player can supercede the regular chain of command and directly order them. Delegation of authority in the real world is what military organizations are all about. Having a player micro-manage every single unit on the board (as most RTS's do) is ludicrous from a combat commander simulation perspective.


And these are just the changes off the top of my head. Hopefully during the summer, I'll be a bit more free to tackle my project again. And hopefully these changes give an idea for what I'd like to see in wargames (as opposed to yet another RTS nation-builder/wargame). So I think there's still plenty of ways for the RTS genre to evolve...by mutating away from its current paradigm.

[edited by - dauntless on December 4, 2003 11:19:07 AM]

Ah yes I remeber my Real time Empire building games thread. I had such high hopes for it, but there was so little of infusion of ideas and most of the feedback consisted of things along the lines of "that reminds of game X". Maybe I'll try and resurect it.

part of the problem is the "if it sells don't mess with it" attiude of publishers as such games have had such little evolution in terms of gameplay. Because honestly how much change has there been between Final Fantasy 1 and final fantasy 10 exulding artistic improvementS?

Dauntless:
I've read your idea and all I can say is I'm wary, very wary. People dislike not having control. Learn from the lesson MOO3 it was a terrible game the AI had complete control and the game became nothing more then a exersie in pressing end turn.


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



[edited by - TechnoGoth on December 4, 2003 3:11:04 PM]

<offtopic>
Yet again, Dauntless, you have managed to make my jaw drop. I’ve been reading your post for some time now and I don’t think that I’ve not read one with anticipation or amazement. Keep thinking outside the box! Once we both have more time, I’d very much like to bounce ideas off one another.
</offtopic>

In my design I’ve been focusing on the micromanagement aspect, specifically implementing a design in which the player isn’t responsible for collecting resources – one of my pet peeves in the RTS genre. In my design I briefly describe the system that I will use in place of the tedium of resource gathering; you can find my design/treatment
here – I welcome constructive comments. Note that this is a very outdated version of my current document – I’ll update it when I get the chance.


Dave Dak Lozar Loeser
The WM_NULL message performs no operation. An application sends the WM_NULL message if it wants to post a message that the recipient window will ignore. - MSDN

quote:

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Original post by TechnoGoth

part of the problem is the "if it sells don''t mess with it" attiude of publishers as such games have had such little evolution in terms of gameplay. Because honestly how much change has there been between Final Fantasy 1 and final fantasy 10 exulding artistic improvementS?

Like completely reworked skill system every game? Only thing that wasn''t changed was fairly tale look and final part of final fantasy.
In every final fantasy you need to discover what for are AP. And recent final fantasy uses that nice small slowly filling bar even for monsters. ^_^

Dauntless:
I''ve read your idea and all I can say is I''m wary, very wary. People dislike not having control. Learn from the lesson MOO3 it was a terrible game the AI had complete control and the game became nothing more then a exersie in pressing end turn.

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That wasn''t the problem. Look at logs. I don''t know what they did, but they screwed it severely.

It wasn''t as much about not in control, but it was more about information hiding. There were more undercover that wasn''t shown, and that should be shown. Do you know lastest patch? If they''d release it as beta then it could be more interesting game. MOO3/Aftermatch were most screwed games of this year.
Don''t forget that funny bugs that removed any playability from MOO3. Harvester reminder. Wrong HFoG rising. PD unusability. AP unusability.

I remmember on nice system that would be usable for controling ground units in MOO3. It was designed somehow freaking 2 years after release of MoM. Game industry wasn''t able to effectively implement it even until now. They used a icon system, somewhat like abstract of Civ, instead.

Actually Dauntless idea reminds me of something I designed long time ago and now implementing, and about Steel Panters II.

Only problem with it is AI for units when they are outside chain of control they should act sensibly. (at least this is one of three biggest problems in RTS)

I agree that the AI issue is very important.

While my coding skills are slowly improving, I still have nowhere near the necessary skills required to even start building AI which can do a quarter of what they will have to do. But I still feel that this is an extremely important feature of the game that simply MUST be there.

For me, being a leader is about delegating responsibility and also realizing the weight of responsibility itself. I''m very tired of the cannon fodder mentality so rampant in RTS games in which no thought is given to creating units and then throwing them away like lifeless objects. But in order to get these ideas across, I need to do two things:

1) Make your AI commanders seem real by acting real. They can become afraid, or lost, or confused, or be fearless. If the player sees his AI commanders as "characters" rather than objects, then half of my design goals have been realized

2) To complete #1, the AI agents have to be able to not just independently act on their own, but also realize the "big picture" of what''s going on around them. In other words, they have to be aware of more than just the world data around them and be able to carry out threat assesments and derive their own Plans of Action. They must also see how the units under his command, and the units under OTHER AI commanders are doing.

I wish there was as much research and effort into good AI programming as there was in graphics programming.

Getting back to the point about non-evolving RTS and RPG games, I wonder if the issue is due to the fact that many designers fail to see that there are other ways of implementing strategy for RTS games and other ways of simulating characters for RPG games?

I sometimes think that some designers think that RTS games define strategy, rather than strategy helping to define what RTS can implement. In other words, they think, "well, this is what (Starcraft, Warcraft, Command and Conquer, Total Annhilation, fill in your favorite RTS game here) is like...so therefore this is what strategy is." Instead of thinking of the definition of strategy itself, or in what other ways one can develop a means of implementing strategic thought, some designers just tweak the formulas presented in the abovementioned RTS games. Whether this is due to marketing pressures with the publishers forcing certain design considerations, or simply due to the designers themselves not exploring beyond the boundaries of the "RTS paradigm" I''m not sure.

For RPG deisgn, it''s amazing how I see so many design considerations that have already been answered in PPRPG designs. And to me, it just seems silly that RPG designers are just reinventing the wheel all over again in many cases. And in other cases I think designers could get more creative ideas from PPRPG''s than they can from simply looking at other CRPG''s.

And so in essence, both genres suffer from the same problem: Designers looking only at existing games within that genre for inspiration and ideas. It seems that if designers would branch out into other game fields...say miniature table top wargames or board games for RTS games, and PPRPG''s for CRPG''s, then I think we''d see a greater diversity in setting, gameplay, and means of interacting with the game itself.

quote:

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Original post by Dauntless
And so in essence, both genres suffer from the same problem: Designers looking only at existing games within that genre for inspiration and ideas. It seems that if designers would branch out into other game fields...say miniature table top wargames or board games for RTS games, and PPRPG''s for CRPG''s, then I think we''d see a greater diversity in setting, gameplay, and means of interacting with the game itself.

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Interesting that you should mention designers branching out into other game fields – I haven’t actually did this in the direction you describe but I have been re-designing a table top wargame for play on the PC.

I know that this isn’t anything new; in fact the computer wargame revolution came about from game programmers (they wore many hats back in the day) converting tabletop wargames to the computer.

So far it’s been a challenge and I recommend it as an exercise for anyone wanting to expand or improve his or her design skills. The interesting part is that the design is already written in the rules of the game and the challenge comes from adapting those rules to fit a play style that you want the player to experience. For anyone interested the game that I am working with is called “Flight Leader.” It’s a aerial combat wargame and I’m thinking that it could be fun to play – not to mention the fact that this hasn’t been done before (at least to my knowledge) and that tactics and strategy seem to be inherent in this games rules.

Dave Dak Lozar Loeser
The WM_NULL message performs no operation. An application sends the WM_NULL message if it wants to post a message that the recipient window will ignore. - MSDN