sorry for that one

Instead of worrying about something like gold mines, maybe you can look at other resource modeling systems. Look at the US for example....its money is not based off of gold, simply the faith in US business that it will be worth something. In the end, America became such an industrial giant because America has some of the best agricultural fields, lumber, and mineral deposits. In other words, sometimes the raw materials are more important than precious materials because ultimately a country produces its goods with raw materials instead of money. Money is good in a peacetime economy when you can use it to trade with others...but in wartime, everyone becomes much more self-reliant because the merchant system focuses on war material transportation rather than trade.

In my game system, I have 3 categories of resources: Raw materials such as lumber, oil, mineral ores and arable farm land, Refineries which take the raw materials and make something useful out of them like gasoline and plastics, semi-conductor chips, farms, and steel mills, and finally People resources which are the actual population as well as its educational capabilities. However, my system is greatly abstracted, and instead of having actual buildings, there are "zones" which include cities for the Refined goods and People resources, as well as the land which includes the raw resources. Capturing or destroying these zones denies the resources to your enemy.

However, you can implement these resources as traditional RTS buildings. Money can be an abstracted system which represents your conglomerate total of these different buildings. For example, you can develop an algorithm, which says that if you have so many Raw Materials, so many Refineries, and so many People Resources then you have X amount of money. However, money is a sort of useless construct in wartime economies. Where it DOES matter is in the morale of the people. If the local populace feels it has worthless money, then this can lower morale. In fact, the Germans during WWII attempted to inundate the English economy with counterfeit money, thereby creating rampant inflation and destroying the faith in the monetary system. Fortunately for the British, they won Battle for Britain, and the Germans were never able to flood England with funny pound notes.

As for unit types, it seems like you are going for tactical level units rather than strategic level units. For example, things like sniper, medic, engineer, etc. are all at the individual level. If you want your game to be at the tactical level, like Commandoes, then there''s nothing wrong with this. However, if you want to get the feel of an international conflict, then you should try to evoke a more strategic flavor to your units. For example, instead of the above unit types, go for things like: Motorized Rifle Platoon, Mechanized Platoon, Armored Cavalry, Recce Platoon, Light Infantry, Airborne, Marine, etc etc. You can further define unit types by the role that they play. For example, you can have Anti-tank, Anti-Air, Heavy Weapons, Mortar teams, Forward Observers, Mobile Headquarters, etc etc.

Think of how real world militaries are organized from the very top level, and then work your way down to more and more specific unit types. Right now, you are concentrating on the individual level...which if this is what you are going for, then ignore this advice. However, think about the squad level (about 7-12 people), and think of what their duties are. Even with special operations units, there is a great deal of specializations. For example, the SEAL''s specialize in counter-terrorist, demolitions, and surgical precision, while Marine Force Recon specializes in insertion and reconnaissance. For the Soviets, Spetsnaz was just a broad term to cover Special Forces as they don''t have different names to cover naval Spetsnaz versus land-based Spetsnaz for example.

There are two major ways to go about this task: you can either study up on how wars are fought, or you can study up on how RTS games are balanced.

In the first case, your game will be a conflict simulator with a pretty video-game interface. That''s fine. It''s going to take a lot of research, and you''ll have to come up with a really good way to employ resources and whatnot. major concerns include how best te represent the strengths and weaknesses of the two superpowers, what role the player will fill in the conflict, and how to portray the various real-world people and objects in a convincing, realistic way.

In the second case, you''re going to have a carefully structured video game with a gritty Cold-War-turned-violent theme. No problem. It''ll take some careful structuring, and you''ll have to strike a compromise between the real countries you''re portraying and the stereotypes that they really should be to keep the game fun. Your primary concerns with this approach will be things like what to make the Tiberium look like so people will believe it can be found in Siberia, how far to make the flamethrowers shoot, and which sound bytes sound best.

I think a realistic RTS would bite, so I''m in favor of what basically amounts to a new graphics set for Starcraft. If you go crazy realistic, try not to forget that you''re making a video game.

And for rocket launchers, give the Soviets RPGs (rocket-propelled grenade) and the Americans M72 LAWs (light anti-armor weapon). I think the AT4 was developed post-Cold-War.

Just throwing this one out;

Have successful battles(infantry, bombing, whatever) boost production and vice versa. That is if you go for a more realistic approach...

You could do a more sophisticated version of "morale", and call it "public perception". Allow journalists to accompany some units on easy victories or routine patrols, so that the people back home will be more inclined to accept the huge expenditure. Instead of just having a factory build a tank, you have to requisition it, and if your perception is too low, they will reject your request. If the journalists get a lot of pictures of G.I.s saving civiians or doing volunteer work at schools in their off-duty time, then your perception goes up. If they see a bunch of bloody losses and mistreatment of prisoners, or if--God forbid-- a journalist dies, it goes down. The better the face you put on the operation, the more resources will be available to you.

Thank you guys! I really regard you time helping me! But take care of that my game won''t be tactical like Blitzkrieg or Close Combat. It will be like Starcraft or Red Alert. So give me ideas for that type of game.
Thank you again!

I still haven''t decided how will I make that thing about gold or money. Please tell me how would you do it in your RTS. Thank you.

Nebo
War 2005 project.

depending on its role mine or bank?

maybe you could sell other stuff (other metals, grain, etc.) at a market which gives you gold (that could be automatic to)

I think bank is better than gold mine. There will be a Command Centar in my game so can it use as a bank too? Perhaps I can keep money in there. And when I spend all money I can ask governant to send me more money, but there will be a limit depends on war situation. If you are better than your opponent you can ask governant for more money, and if you are weakest than your opponent you will get less money. Is this good idea?

Nebo
War 2005 project.