I''ve been thinking lately about different economics models for strategy games. The idea goes as follows: Players make money from the value of the lands that they control. With the money made during the game player get the following choices on how to spend their dollars: 1. on units and buildings 2. improving tech levels of units (and buildings) 3. (new economics model) investing money into land which will improve the lands value for later income (Capitalisation). I was also thinking that there would naturally have to be a cap on how much can be invested into land. An example of this model in use is maybe: Player 1 has a plot of land valued at 10 Player 1 consantly recieves 10 credits per (X amount of time) to spend on whatever. Player 1 invests 4 credits into land which increases the value of the land to 12 (2 credits per 1 value point) Player 1 will now recieve 12 credits from this plot of land instead of 10. I love Game Design and it loves me back. Our Goal is "Fun"!

That isn''t all that different from how things are now in most games, instead the investment is usually in the form of a collection building and workers, the maximum amount of investment is based on the mechanics of resource extraction. So your system, what would the improvement show us as? More advanced mining devices or farms? Whatever it is you''ll need to make sure it is open to raiding to make small attacks worthwhile.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

That isn''t all that different from how things are now in most games, instead the investment is usually in the form of a collection building and workers, the maximum amount of investment is based on the mechanics of resource extraction. So your system, what would the improvement show us as? More advanced mining devices or farms? Whatever it is you''ll need to make sure it is open to raiding to make small attacks worthwhile.

Oh? I think it is different... for one it would remove the micro-management from the game and allow the player to have fun, not be stressed out playing a game. Of course some level of stress is necessary, but it can be exchanged with another part of the game (IMO).

Paul, I like this ideal. The old Empire game (my ex-wife and I played this game many hours, fond memories of me stomping her butt), was based stricly on land ownership... the more cities, the more types of weapons.
This is a step in the right direction for a RTS. I will play it!


Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

Was ''M.U.L.E'' considered an RTS?

I still play m.u.l.e once a month or so. That was such a smart game. M.U.L.E wasn''t (imho) a RTS it was just cool

In responses to the anomy, i don''t think that it''s always neccassary to be able to destroy your opponents economic setup. You may wish to use it your self one day But, this is a little different as you wouldn''t actually be setting up mining facilities and the like. Well, the way i''m planning on using the idea anyhow.

Mmmm, i can''t wait for WDK 2K, i wonder what it''s like.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Mmm, if you really thinnk that the goal of war is destuction, you are badly mistaken. It''s all about conquest baby !
Capture enemies, capture tanks, capture buildings, capture EVERYTHING. I won''t bother quoting SunTzu, but will-be RTS designers, please, do read this very interesting book. (or ask me, it''s somewhere on my account, short read, deep thought).

Paul, just one thing annoys me ? Do you really think that *investing* in lands is what happens during wars ???
I just notice that after most wars, the money of most states had to be devaluated, jsut to tell you about how good the economics situation was. Most investment was to sell everything note you had for gold before those notes weren''t even worth the price of their paper... so would it be really realistic to talk about investment ?

Well, on your defence, I can a situation, but a very dirty one though. If you were a colonizing country, in this case I suppose investment would be a very important thing indeed. But personaly I would play England invading the rest of the world (nor France, for that matter )

youpla :-P

oh I know it is a pretty new idea, what I meant was it doesn''t add a new level of strategy since economics are already in the game. It is a way of doing the same level of strategy with (presumably) less management. That of course is a good thing because the player can then spend more time on combat.

I do think it is very important for you to be able to inflict economic damage to your opponent in some way, whether it is through basic destruction or capture. That keeps the entire game dynamic with interaction throughout. Games that don''t allow for useful attacks throughout always culminate in a single boring mass attack at the end. (AoK is almost that way for example).

If you have no ability to destroy investment you will be restriced to capturing it. In most games it will be completely impossible to capture land near their main base, of course I haven''t played your game yet.

ahw, one question is starcraft64 realistic. Realism is RTS''s is something i''m not to interested in. I just like a game that holds together well with maximum fun. I personally only ever look to realism to add character to the games that i''m designing so what you''ve said means completely changing my outlook on designing games, sorry Unless at course i was to take the challange of making a history based strategy game but i can assure you that this is last on my list of games to make. Well that''s my view anyhow, feel free to flame my opinion.

But maybe i should answer your question just for the sake of it ahw. Investment in a wartime scenerio... (scratching head) ok what about the gulf war, America was investing in things whilst it was at war. Same a Vietnam. I could always use this as an excuse: the war in my game is just a smaller war being conducted by larger forces There we go, i wormed my way out of it again, yay!



I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

starcraft64??? it is but a crude parody of the true SC for the PC, though of course if you haven''t played the PC version the n64 version would probably be great game. There is a reason SC is the 5th best seller after two and a half years (while even most sucessful games fall of the top ten list after two months), that reason is it''s the best multiplayer game ever. Oh and yes reality never got in their way.

Nice to see that there is actually people reading ''The Art of War''. Something I would like to see in a RTS is more careful handling of resources, insted om totally trashing the enemy you should be able to take prisoners, capture buildings and units.

In a real war (not in a computer game) you wouldn''t destroy the country you are invading, since then there would be no point in invading.

Investing in land is a good idea, insted of enlessly break some unknown material and turn that into credits. Taxes is also good, capture more land, help the people to build it up, and collect more taxes, collect too much and they revolt...

Take care,
Padrino