It is time for another brainstorming question! This time, I would like to ask your opinion on goals you like to see in strategy games. With some games of strategy, there are clearly identifiable simple objectives that the player has to meet. With other games, there is only a single, ultimate winning condition that must me achieve. In others, there are no explict objectives, and the player can do what they like within the rules of the game. My question is; which of these game types do you think has the best appeal to you? Are there some strategy games where the nature of the goals made the game less appealing, or others where the limitations of a narrow set of objectives made the game less fun? Please note that here I am defining what "strategy games" mean to be of very broad scope, containing the genres of real time strategy, turn based strategy, simulation management games (SimCity), god games etc. Any games that have a strong element of strategy, tactics and/or resource management are to be considered. I don't particularly want to limit this discussion to one particular genre of game, since that is unimportant to me.

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To get the discussion started, here's a short summary of the types of goals, as I see them, in strategy type games that I've played: Implicit Goals Some games have no winning conditions; the game keeps running forever, and the player sets their own objectives implicit in the mechanics of the gameplay. Sometimes these games include a losing "Game Over" condition, sometimes they don't. Often seen in sim style games. Examples are SimCity, Afterlife, The Sims, various sandbox modes in other games Single Explicit Goal: Some games give you an ultimate goal, such as ruling the world, that you need to achieve. Often there's more than one way to meet the goal (such as combat or diplomacy). Usually seen in empire, conquest and 4X style games. Examples are Civilization, Master of Orion. Scenario Based Goals: Some games give you a series of scenarios where you work towards a smaller objective, such as constructing or destroying a certain building, or getting a certain amount of resources. Often seen in RTS games. Useful for leading the player through tutorials. Examples include every mission based game ever made Optional Rewards: This is a variant of the "implict goal" or "single explict goal" approaches. While the game is still open ended, there are a number of mini-objectives that are set by the game that the player can achieve for a reward. This will amalgamate some of the directedness of the "scenario based goal" approach with the freedom of the "implict goal"/"single explicit goal" approach. Examples include Sims 2. I'd welcome any other suggestions for goal classification types if there's any that I've missed.

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So what sorts of goals do you like to see in strategy games (of all stripes and colours)?

I like replayability. A lot. Having more scenario goals often act in contrary to this, either by requiring programmers to code up the goals, or by restricting map generation to cater to the scenario goal.

Thus the 'do the best you can' goal of Sim City, and the explicit goal ala Civilization that still allows for map generation have the best appeal. Personally, the explicit goal sort of ending is simply a by-product that the 'do the best you can' goal is rather pointless once all competators are eliminated, or the tech tree is run out, or the space ship is built...

A single general goal that allows me to meander towards it at my own pace is preferable to having to do a hundred sub-quests to get there. The FIRST time I play, all the sub-quests are fine. But replayablity is destroyed. I think of Guild Wars. I would rather chew off my hand than play through the area around Ascalon again with its 5 zillion mini quests. At least I enjoy the PvP aspect. In Diablo 2 I could skip many quests (though not all to be sure), and still finish the game, thus allowing for greater replayability, esp. in hardcore. At least for me.

For me a good strategy game should have all three types of goals. There should be an overarching goal or objective but I should have a immense freedom in choosing the way in which I want to complete it. Along the way there should be mini goals to keep the game moving or interesting. The mini goals do not need to be mandatory but they should be there and hoepfully have some benefit upon their completion. With only 1 main goal the wait for the feeling of a victory can be too long, if there is no goal at all the game is only fun as long as there is new stuff to do, once I have seen it all I have no real reason to continue playing. A game with only mini goals is passable but the overall game, I think, would suffer from only having mini objectives.

I dislike playing a game that is built on a sandbox engine but then have last-minute scenarios tossed in. To be honest, I've never played a strategy game with good scenarios. They always seem to be way off base, or the scenario goals seem to be based too far off from the main free-mode goal.

It's really hard to mention specifics without knowing the game's main free-mode goal. Or at least what players can do in the free-mode game.

I think the most important element is that the scenarios should build towards something. My biggest gripe with mini-games of any kind is that once completed, you're back where you started. IE, you gain nothing from winning. I enjoy playing mini-games or scenarios when finishing gives me something cool to use through the rest of the current game or future games. It would also be nice if the reward matches the scenario. For example, maybe building a large bridge could be a goal. Doing so gives you access to more areas. Again, pretty difficult to guess what the player can do in your game :)

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Original post by Ned_K I would rather chew off my hand

[lol] Rating++

Thanks for the replies so far!

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Original post by Kest It's really hard to mention specifics without knowing the game's main free-mode goal. Or at least what players can do in the free-mode game.

That's true, although I'd like to keep this as general as possible. Although my game will definitely not be mission based (as per RTS games), there's still something to learn from them.

However, since my game won't have the "start again from scratch" problem, I might ask an additional question: for those of you who dislike the mini-objectives in scenarios due to their lack of repeat play friendliness, or the tendency to have to start from scratch in mission based games, would you prefer mini-objectives if:
- you did not have to start from scratch (rebuilding your base/cities/team etc.) after the objective is complete
- the scenarios were randomly generated in each game?

Or would you prefer no explicitly specfied small objectives, and only have a large overall game winning goal? Or have a game that goes on forever?

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Original post by Trapper Zoid Or would you prefer no explicitly specfied small objectives, and only have a large overall game winning goal? Or have a game that goes on forever?

Sorry, I didn't realize you were asking this straight-up. Speaking in terms of RPGs, I prefer games that have a main goal with the going-on-forever in the background. For combat strategy games, I prefer going on forever until all enemies are defeated. For sim strategy, just the going on forever.

I can't really imagine what the goal might be in non-combat strategy. The only games that come to mind are Outpost, Sim City, and The Sims. In Outpost, you win after you fully colonize a planet. I think. It's been a while. I'm mostly a combat fan, so I'm probably not being very helpful. Moving along :)

Randomly generated scenarios suck over time. [think privateer] Privateer was a fine game, but it's not really replayable, and after a time the random missions became repetative and tedious. [edit: but on the other hand, X-Com's missions didn't get so stale, mostly because of the heavy application of random maps...]

And I don't mind starting from scratch usually; after-all building up and exploring the map is usually most of the fun! [and it's not fun when it's full of pointless choices, like in most RTS games]

I think it's important to make sure that each of the goals in these scenarios are linked. Even the most interesting goal isn't going to be as effective if it doesn't make any sense in the context.

Consider conceptualizing these goals in terms of arcs and chains, and diversify from there.

Of course, this is assuming that the strategy game takes place over multiple scenarios or within a larger framework, which... may not be so :p

With strategy games, replayability is the key. Flexibility does a lot to ensure replayability. So I'd say include as many of those goal types as possible. Making each type (except for implicit goals) optional also makes the gameplay more flexible.

One thing I like in strategy games is random events/situations, a la Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations. The latter stands out more to me because how you act in a given random situation will affect the outcome of the game. However, they are only decision points with no actual gameplay. With MOO, there is often actual gameplay involved in resolving the random situations.

- Rob