I'm currently modding The C&C Generals engine, and is trying to create a very small game with a few units to each faction etc etc. I am currently modeling units and stuff. I having problems of beeing really creative here, since I want to bring some realism and nationalism to it. "France have french units". Problems: 1: Wouldn't it be boring if every faction can build a rifleman, a rocket guy, and and an apc? They have their dozers, barracks and supply center... 2: Balance. How should I balance this? I can ofcourse think of small differense between these units, but I have not been doing balancing before. Any advice? 3: I don't think I should refer to real names and real flags in this game, but how can I name and put a flag to an "German" faction without beeing to direct???

Of course its more interesting if the races are actually different rather than just visually different.

Have you ever played Starcraft. Its Graphics is out of date today but I still prefer it in multiplayer to any other RTS out there. It features 3 completely different races that require 3 different strategy approaches. Yet, the races are really well balanced. A good player will be able to win with any race.

How did they balance it, trough testing, testing and more testing. To give you a dumb example. In beta starcraft beta stage Terrans siege tanks could shot at all units. Since they have long range, during beta testing, it became obvius that terran base defence line with a line of siege tanks and some detectors around them could not be broken without severe losses. The defender could just sit and watch. What did they do? They made the tanks so they could only shout at the ground thus they are usseless against air units which means that an a well run air strike can destroy a good group of tanks really quickly. Hence the defender has to be there to manipulate air defences.

Basicly. Make the race the way u feel it would be good, then get some of ur friends to come over and play the game in multiplayer with them. If you spend an afternoon playing I bet they as well as you will have a tons of ideas on how to improve the balance of ur races.

If you're making a historical game, there's nothing wrong with using real nation names. There are many RTS games that do this, even wiht modern history: Rise of Nations, Empire Earth, etc. If you want to stay away from it though, maybe you can find the name of a German army and use that.

The best way to create balance is through testing. However, there are some general guidelines:
1. Counter-strategies and counter-units. Every strategy that someone can use should be counterable by any faction if they play with equal skill (think equal resources gathered in the same time). Every unit should be counterable by any faction for a *lower* cost (if the enemy makes an army of only tanks and spends 10000 resources on it, you should be able to beat it with a bunch of anti-tank guns that cost only 7000 resources for example). However, don't turn the game into rock-paper-scissors, where people basically have to scout out/guess the enemy strategy and they are practically guaranteed to win if they use the right counter-strategy. If a player spent 10x more resources on tanks than you've spent on anti-tank guns, they should win.
2. Resource gather rates. Everybody should gather the resources they need at approximately the same rate (although they might use very different methods, and some factions may have bonuses for gathering certain types of resources). Set a goal like, say, creating an army of 100 units, and see how fast each faction can get there. (Of course different factions would have different kinds of armies.. make sure that the armies they each get in that time come to a draw if they fight).
3. Nothing should be useless. The strategy in your game shouldn't be "focus on tanks and fighters", and the mark of someone being an expert shouldn't be "this person uses no infantry". Upgrades should also be useful for their price, in at least some situations. This is not only a balance issue but also a gameplay issue. The fun in a strategy game comes from making decisions. So there should be as many possible decisions to make as you can add in.
4. Diminishing returns. In general, beyond some point, you should get something at a lower rate per worker if you invest more workers in it. This enhances realism, makes players diversify, and ensures that players can't make really drastic changes in production (which turns the game into rock-paper-scissors) and that if somebody falls behind by 1-2 workers they don't automatically lose the game. For example, 100 workers building a fort shouldn't do it 100 times faster than 1 worker building it. Similarly, putting 100 workers to work on a mine should be slower than putting 1 worker each on 100 mines (this might happen naturally due to overcrowding). Some games really take this concept to the next level; for example, Rise of Nations puts caps on resource gather rates that you can only increase through research, and increases the cost of a unit the more of it you have. It makes for a much more interesting game. Of course, you shouldn't take this *too* far; the best strategy shouldn't be "build equal numbers of each unit".

Also, an important gameplay issue:
5. Make interaction between players begin as soon as possible. This doesn't mean that you should be able to kill someone by 3 minutes into the game, but it does mean that you should be able to start raiding and competing for resources at that time. If the game is such that the best strategy is to expand and gather resources for the first 15 minutes, then it feels like playing single-player for 15 minutes. Furthermore, if you know that every game you'll have 15 minutes to build up, you can figure out an "optimal" way to get as many resources as possible in that time, and the first 15 minutes become a matter of going through the same well-rehearsed "build order" every game. Only when players start interacting do you really have real-time strategy and decision making.

Some of the names of regiments through history have been really cool - the Scottish ColdStream Guard comes to mind. You might consider adapting one of these names for your needs. For Germany in particular, "Abschnitt" is the word for regiment, although I don't know how much use it gets.

ld

wow - lots of good thoughts and answear here. Impressed.

The game I create is just a basic one, just to complete a mod (create a new game) with as few objects as possible. I'm a bad modeler, and making skinns and stuff takes alot of time.

The story in the game is more controversial than what is really healty. So using flags, name of countries, etc is something that I want to avoid. It is like the old C&C which had GDI (US) and NOD (russians++). I think I also would change the name of my units, I can't call them Leopard 2A6, AMX 10p, etc etc ... so a GTA style nick name system would have to be implemented.

Right now I have 4 factions (two US, civil war, hence the controversy), nato(minus US), and a "NOD" enemy. (not alquida). Nato have to save the world.
Every faction will have their Dozer, APC, Rifleman, Rocket Guy, and maybe a machinegunner. This is my first goal to acomplish. Not much difference really. But if I would expand on upgrades and units, each faction would be ... more or like the same I am afraid. Tanks, Artillery, Aircraft, Bomber, etc etc...

I don't like restrictions, if someone wants a chopper that carrys ppl, and shoot rockets ... why not? But the questions ends up in 2 things.
1 - Balance
2 - If everybody have more or less the same things, only with different looks, would that kill gameplay?

Of course the game would be balanced out , if all the factions were basically the same.

If wouldn't necceserally kill gameplay. Although its not as obvious, Warcraft II and say Age of Kings both basiccaly had factions with identical units just masked out to feel different.

Of course all the armies of the world(if they have eqaul funding) will have very very simiral units, in real world.

But I feel the game would be more fun to play with the factions all being very different.(meaning: only one of the factions has the chopper that can carry soldiers and fire rockets). Not very realistic, but if you reallly want realistic go out and join a real war. But then, that's not a game by any means nor its fun.

A suggestion: you could make it out as if different factions had different approaches to military strategy. NATO would really heavily on its airforce, meaning it would be weaker on other types of units while NOD(the enemy) would really more on querilla war meaning it would have the best stealth units while being weak on air units (this in turns requires it to have reasonable ground, air defence).


You said : "I don't like restrictions, if someone wants a chopper that carrys ppl, and shoot rockets ... why not?"

Of course if they want that kind of chopper, whell they'll just have to play with NATO won't they. If everybody has everything you might as well have just one faction, right?