It''s idea that i''ve been thinking about for sometime now (I can''t stop thinking about it) so why not tell the whole world After playing a lot of worms a fare while ago i thought about making a rts with the same persective. A platoon would be represented by one man with a number over his head. The number representing how many in the platoon. Big issue: No Health! It''s all hit and miss (with a thac0 system similar to d&d working behind the scenes). If you hit then the number would drop one off your opponents platoon. You would build underground bunkers instead of builds onland. The map would be wrap around capable of having massively multiplayer games. Mechs would also be involved as well as areoplanes. Men wouldn''t be men because this is a future game. All unit''s are mechanical so no blood and guts. But it gives a good excuse for being able to generate infantry from a machine. Player''s would start the game with 2 options. Play as a government or as a corporation. If you start as a government then your income is constant thought out the game. If you play as a corportation then you start with less but as you supply results your funding improves. That''s right, No economic managment! or little. Opinions? I love Game Design and it loves me back. Our Goal is "Fun"!

About the sideview RTS games, you should check out King Arthur''s World for the SNES. It is pretty much the first sideview RTS game I''ve seen, and only one too.

Call me ignorant or lazy but i''d like to know what SNES means, please

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

The SNES is the Nintendos 16bit system the Super Famicon as it was called in the US and probably Japan. In the UK it was called the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES for sort.

Thankyou Mr Black

If nobody minds, i might start using this thread to place my plans out for a sideview rts. If anyone feels the urge to help, join in or just comment on the game logic as it evolves please feel free

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

There was a fairly old game for mac and dos called Armor Alley that was a single plane RTS/action game. The strategy element is that you''d purchase units that would start to travel across the map from your base towards the enemy base. The action element is that you control a helicopter that zips back and forth over the map as support. Most of the strategy was coming up with an order to send out your units, since once they left you no longer had control. Tanks were the strongest, but vulnerable to the chopper. SAMs blow up real good, but they also shoot down the chopper. Infantry can take over bunkers and turrets, and engineers can repair broken bunkers and turrets. You won if you got a weak, defenseless van all the way to the enemy base. There''s probably some ideas somewhere in there to steal.

OK, I have been thinking about that one for some time for my BSc of Computing, but I dropped the idea ''cause I just could decide on what to do.
First thing, real time or turn based ?
Turn based seems nice because it implies a more "strategic" game like chess, where everymove and every piece has its importance. As well, it usually means that you will have less units, because they have more importance (which is quiet stupid, since you are turnbase you could have hundreds of units ... )
Worms is an excellent example of such a game.
Now if you introduce bases, turrets, mobile units, and so on, you have too much stuff on your screen for a "one unit per turn".
I can see a nice alternative, that I hadn''t thought of before now : have a planning phase that is simultaneous. Basically it means that just like in Diplomacy (the board game) you issue your movement orders to all your troops in a hidde manner, all players at the same time. When everybody agrees, the orders are "solved", which means the units are actually moved, solving any conflict as they occur.
OMG, it''s actually an excellent idea Should have brainstormed a little bit more last year. you get lots of units on the field, all having a chance to do something everyturn (eventually, use a concept of "actions per turn" stat).

The other way to go is real time, but then, on a 2D view, their is really no point is there. It would be like playing Lemmings with to opposite hordes running at each other ...
Or then you go into a 3D format, and there you go again, it''s an RTS

ANyway, I''d like to see what you think of the first idea, I am just thinking that this is just plain cool.

youpla :-P

Using stacks for units is a pretty good idea. The only problem with the sideview is for depth--some people are going to love only having 2 dimensions to work in, but others are going to hate it as "retro gaming," since you''re going from 3D to 2D. I like the idea anyway. Worms was a lot of fun. One unit per turn is a bad idea, and for a single player game, there isn''t really any reason to impose turn limits, but if you make it turn-based, you could have something like 2 minutes to move as many units as you could, and each type of unit would have x distance it could move in a turn.

Also, would there be friendly fire damage? I played Worms 2 and if I remember right, it just looked for the first thing it hit, but with stacks instead of single units, players may get upset by having to worry about lobbing things over other units, or having to find a way to slide their gun units in front of artillery with a turn-based system.

I''m sure that all seems like a bunch of gibberish, but it should make sense once you think about it a litte.

I was just planning of buying Diplomacy due to the fact that myself and a couple of friends have pretty much played Axis and Allies to death. It''s funny becuase the way you said it works with everyone secretly planning their next move was actually an alteration with the rule for axis and allies that i was thinking of. I''m deffintely going to be buying the game now.

But here''s what i''ve planned so far for my side view rts anyhow.

Players start with a base at hand which they have to place into a mountain side. If it''s placed to deeply into the mountain side it will take them longer to build their way to the surface at the beginning but the later advantage will be that i''ll be harder to destroy.

After placing their base they can then go about building extensions onto it. Since the base would be a square then it makes sence that they could only build 4 extensions onto the home base. These extensions would have to be relevent to the concept of building foundations to a massive army/airforce/navy. So they get the following choices:
1. Build Army/Airforce Intelligence Corp HQ
2. Build Army/Airforce Reconstruction Plant
3. Build Extention Coridor (To allow them to build futher away)
4. Build AI Training and Research Centre.

Since, all of the units in the game would be mechanical and AI driven, if a player wanted to improve their force they can improve the AI of their Units (AI Training Centre)

An Intelligence Corp HQ gives you information about your enemies state.

A Reconstruction Plant allows you to recycle the material used for making units. It acts like a bank for metal. It also acts like one of the atomic constuction units from Startrek that can build anything that has been programmed into them. Which is where the later to be built Programming and Engineering Centre comes in.

Extension Corridors would simply allow you to build further away from you base so if a building is too large for an area (overlap with other structures) then you would have to build a extention corridor first. Extention corridors also allow units to get to the surface and begin taking land, digging in, making turrets and bunkers.

Anyhow that''s enough for now i guess.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

quote:
Units (AI Training Centre)

english spelling of center?

nifty ideas. Do you actually mean crawl out to the surface, or would it be something like on a lot of games where you have to use weapons to blast through the dirt? If you have to blast through, it really doesn''t affect difficulty of reaching the base, because after you blast a tunnel, they can come in your exit tunnel just as easily as you can exit it.