A real-time strategy without base-building - doomed to be less popular? I've been thinking about this lately. Basically, I have an idea in mind for a RTS game without base-building, but I'm not sure if that would really appeal to the broad public. Base-building has been mainstream for years and though the amount of non-base-building games is increasing, the former type still seems to be more popular. So I'd like to know, what do you think makes base-building so popular? How could these strong points be replaced in a non-base-building RTS? What I think is so strong about base-building is it's safety factor. A failed attack doesn't mean a failed mission. And often with these games resources like money, or power, are an important factor, which allows for different tactics like raiding some harvesters to block a players income, or blowing up power plants to shut down defenses. Basically, I believe base-building feels safer and the resource factor allows for more strategic decisions. Now my idea's for a non-base-building RTS are to allow the building of strongpoints using quick resources like sandbags and cammo netting, so defensive positions can be constructed and removed fast, to allow temporarily defensive positions. Units would receive cover bonusses from these constructions and some could perhaps serve more in-depth function, like a field medic tent or such. Another thing I have in mind is having an ammunition resource type, where units fire with reduced fire-power when they run out of ammunition (to prevent this from becoming annoying, I wouldn't want to prevent them from firing completely). This would mean ammunition supplies would become strategically important and ammunition convoy's would act like the harvesters factor in the other RTS type. To conclude, I think allowing construction of temporary strongpoints and adding ammunition as a resource could be good replacements for the base-building aspects I'd like to hear your thoughts on this... Please note that I'm referring to games such as Command & Conquer and Ground Control, not to games like Rome: Total War. Also note that orange words might have a mouseover text attached to them. I like title properties.

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Original post by Captain P A real-time strategy without base-building - doomed to be less popular?

Why do you want an RTS without base-building? Is it because you're trying to be different, or do you have a concrete vision for gameplay which does not include base building? Or is base-building simply an aspect of gameplay that you think could be done without?

I'm not trying to dissuade you - I have ideas for RTS games without base building myself - but answering that question might help you to answer your own.

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What I think is so strong about base-building is it's safety factor. A failed attack doesn't mean a failed mission. And often with these games resources like money, or power, are an important factor, which allows for different tactics like raiding some harvesters to block a players income, or blowing up power plants to shut down defenses.

I don't think this is true of most RTS games that I've played, unless by 'base-building' you mean 'turtling'.

Most decent players don't build a base because they like to feel safe; they do it because it determines how your economy develops, and thus the number and type of units you can bring into the game, which has a profound effect on what you can do. In fact, the majority of the 'strategy' comes from developing your economy in this manner; if you remove it you will need to pick up the slack elsewhere.

If we're talking about turtling though, you're right; that's nearly always a 'safety' thing. You have a large map, limited mobile units and a limited ability to control all your men. Lots of large, static, powerful, and tough objects like turrets are a very tempting way of 'protecting' a chunk of the map without having to expend much attention on it. However, few RTS games are really designed with turtling in mind, and it is very rarely a worthwhile tactic - it's expensive, slow, and inflexible. Turtles and turret farmers tend to lose badly to more aggressive players.

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Now my idea's for a non-base-building RTS are to allow the building of strongpoints using quick resources like sandbags and cammo netting, so defensive positions can be constructed and removed fast, to allow temporarily defensive positions.

I'm not sure if this achieves what you want; it seems to me that you lose all of the strategic options that come with the economy development side of base building, but retain the (generally undesirable) ability of players to turtle up.

Personally, I think if a non-base-building game is to work you need to make the most out of the terrain. Perhaps you can build certain defensive structures, but are limited in what you can build and where. You can't quickly build a dugout in the middle of a rocky plain because the ground is too hard. You can't build it in soft sand either, because it fills in faster than you can dig it. You can use sandbags anywhere, but sandbags are heavy so you're limited to using them in places near roads where your supply trucks can bring them. Otherwise, you have to use the features on the terrain. If you want a bunker, you'll have to locate one on the map and capture it.

Base building is there for two main purposes.
1. To allow the player to increase available tech during the mission.
2. To force the player to juggle several balls.

The first is fairly obvious. You need to get your tech up as quickly as possible to counter the enemy threat. The second is a little less so. By making you build a base, build units and wage war the game is forcing you to keep several balls in the air at once which adds a feeling of "almost panic" as you jump back to the base, then back to the front lines, then order more units, build a new building, launch a new attack. The early RTS games (Dune II, C&C, Warcraft) weren't really very strategic at all, they were excercises in multi-tasking.

So, base or no base? I guess in part that depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you want the pressure that comes from doing several things then have base building or find something else to replace it. If that isn't your intention then you could more easily dump it.

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Original post by Sandman Why do you want an RTS without base-building? Is it because you're trying to be different, or do you have a concrete vision for gameplay which does not include base building? Or is base-building simply an aspect of gameplay that you think could be done without?

I believe base-building doesn't reflect nowadays fast wars, where army's don't have time to construct whole facilities in order to fight, or where only small combat groups are sent into a hot zone, having to establish a base of operation before any other troops can come in.
The idea behind my ideas is to reflect real combat better, and emphasize on battlefield tactics rather than base-building and economics.
I see the being different here more as a problem than a novelty, simply because this different style seems to be less popular.

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Most decent players don't build a base because they like to feel safe; they do it because it determines how your economy develops, and thus the number and type of units you can bring into the game, which has a profound effect on what you can do. In fact, the majority of the 'strategy' comes from developing your economy in this manner; if you remove it you will need to pick up the slack elsewhere.

I'm planning on letting the player choose his units and tweak their equipment before a mission starts, but then there's indeed the problem that a player can't react to the enemy units if he chose the wrong units (say, no anti-tank units is a pain while fighting against a tank squadron).
To counter that, I want to give the player intelligence reports and maps beforehand so he can plan his unit choice better. I'm still thinking about a reinforcements system. Right now I haven't thought about it a lot but I might mix it up with ammunition and weapon supplies, so you can refit your troops during battle (this should be kept simple and fast to execute) and react to enemy decisions better. Perhaps changing this on a per-mission base, where defensive missions allow for reinforcements and all, and offensive missions, which are more on-the-move, have to do with limited reinforcements?

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If we're talking about turtling though, you're right; that's nearly always a 'safety' thing. You have a large map, limited mobile units and a limited ability to control all your men. Lots of large, static, powerful, and tough objects like turrets are a very tempting way of 'protecting' a chunk of the map without having to expend much attention on it. However, few RTS games are really designed with turtling in mind, and it is very rarely a worthwhile tactic - it's expensive, slow, and inflexible. Turtles and turret farmers tend to lose badly to more aggressive players.

I'm talking about the turtling indeed. I've learnt to play aggressive if I want to win, but naturally I like to play it safe. I like to build and design, too, so I got easily distracted by it. I guess it depends on the type of player but I'll assume I should strongly take aggressivenes into account when designing my game. In reality it's an important factor as well.

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I'm not sure if this achieves what you want; it seems to me that you lose all of the strategic options that come with the economy development side of base building, but retain the (generally undesirable) ability of players to turtle up.

Think of strongpoints here more as machinegun nests and other soft buildings like tents. I want to limit these, if not exclude, from offensive missions but for defensive missions, I think they can provide interesting options. My game idea emphasizes on cover for infantery (not getting hit is more important than the armor a unit has) so it's not like these strongpoints would be 'building' with a life-bar of their own so to say, but quickly built, protected area's for your units. So no automated turrets or defensive structures, but digging in troops.
Of course, these sandbags would need to get transported by trucks or other vehicles so their use is limited to certain places.

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Personally, I think if a non-base-building game is to work you need to make the most out of the terrain. Perhaps you can build certain defensive structures, but are limited in what you can build and where. You can't quickly build a dugout in the middle of a rocky plain because the ground is too hard. You can't build it in soft sand either, because it fills in faster than you can dig it. You can use sandbags anywhere, but sandbags are heavy so you're limited to using them in places near roads where your supply trucks can bring them. Otherwise, you have to use the features on the terrain. If you want a bunker, you'll have to locate one on the map and capture it.

Definitely. I want to use the terrain as more than just offering different routes and area's. Cover is important for units (they get easily killed once hit, cover and visibility makes them harder to hit) as well as visibility, so I want to include these things a lot into the maps. An open field could be turned into a killing zone with well-placed machinegun nests and mines, while these would be much less effective in a dense forest, for example.

Thanks for your thoughts, it's good feedback. :)

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Original post by Obscure Base building is there for two main purposes. 1. To allow the player to increase available tech during the mission. 2. To force the player to juggle several balls. The first is fairly obvious. You need to get your tech up as quickly as possible to counter the enemy threat. The second is a little less so. By making you build a base, build units and wage war the game is forcing you to keep several balls in the air at once which adds a feeling of "almost panic" as you jump back to the base, then back to the front lines, then order more units, build a new building, launch a new attack. The early RTS games (Dune II, C&C, Warcraft) weren't really very strategic at all, they were excercises in multi-tasking. So, base or no base? I guess in part that depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you want the pressure that comes from doing several things then have base building or find something else to replace it. If that isn't your intention then you could more easily dump it.

I plan on having this tech part being done outside of the actual gameplay - the story reveals new tech at certain points and you'll be given access to better equipment or larger arsenals while you progress through the game.

The juggling is another thing I want to do something about. The base-building often prevents me from executing broader tactics simply because units on themselves can't be trusted (in most games they still stay idle while being shot at from afar) and I can't do everything at the same time. By taking out the base-building, I think better tactics can be used because there's more time for managing them now.
Basically, more strategy and tactics, less plain multitasking.

Check out ground Control, (Free now)

Very fun game with a few plot holes. (If you can scan and tell you destoryed a building with cannons, but you couldn't see the buildings in the first place,... and then there is the fact that you have no orbial cannon strikes, even if we can have a drop ship land RIGHT where you call it,...)


I honestly HATE RT*S* that have you building a base and units in battle. Split time games like RomeTotalWar, and Lords of the Realm are MUCH more fun.

You have a few choices for not having bases. 1. Build bases, raise armies and use those armies to engage in battles. 2. The game simple gives you units in one way or another (something like you get credits in missions and can then buy more troops for your army, upgrade them, etc, or each mission you have access to so many units of the army.)

I'm sure there are other ideas, but those are the main 2. Could be others, but I gota go now.

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Original post by Talroth Check out ground Control, (Free now) Very fun game with a few plot holes. (If you can scan and tell you destoryed a building with cannons, but you couldn't see the buildings in the first place,... and then there is the fact that you have no orbial cannon strikes, even if we can have a drop ship land RIGHT where you call it,...)

I've got both Ground Control and Ground Control 2: Operation Exodus. Plus that GC add-on. Nice games but at times, they got a rough on the edges. Namely when you had to cross a large section of land with little action going on. The dropzone system in GC2 is nice but this also means there's a steady stream of units which comes down to gathering resources to obtain units, only slightly different this time.

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I honestly HATE RT*S* that have you building a base and units in battle. Split time games like RomeTotalWar, and Lords of the Realm are MUCH more fun. You have a few choices for not having bases. 1. Build bases, raise armies and use those armies to engage in battles. 2. The game simple gives you units in one way or another (something like you get credits in missions and can then buy more troops for your army, upgrade them, etc, or each mission you have access to so many units of the army.)

I definitely agree with the split time statement. I see base-building as something of a different time-scale than real-time battles. One of the reasons I want to take it out.
I've chosen the second way, by letting the player select his units before a mission starts. I'm probably keeping the units from the previous mission as a base for the next mission, similar to Codename Panzers, but I haven't decided about the how and what completely.

How do you build new units?

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Original post by Daniel Miller How do you build new units?

Basically, you don't build any new units. You compose your army before the mission starts based on information about the mission (sattelite maps, intelligence reports, things like that).

However, I'm thinking about a reinforcements system for defensive oriented missions that allows you to call in certain units, but haven't decided the exact dynamics of that system yet.
The idea right now is to give the player a certain amount of points before the mission starts, which he then can use to request new units, or he can save them to call in reinforcements during the mission.
But maybe it's a good thing to separate the two, so a player can always call in some reinforcements and doesn't have to worry about saving some points for during the mission? Or maybe it's a good thing to add a planning aspect into the game?

This really depends on how you do it. Here are some fun examples:

Starcraft/Warcraft3:
I think what bothered me the most about the "here is 6 units, get them from point A to B, and collect X hero" maps
was the fact that the game WAS base building, so those missions felt really out of place. More so in starcraft, where your units were weak and disposible in most mission. But, there seemed to be a decent story behind everything,
and the Blizzard team seemed to be more concerned with advancing that than making the levels "good".

Starship Troopers:
More like what has been mentioned. You go arround with 4 units to start, then gain more as the missions progress.
And you get to add new equipment and research to improve your team.
Overall this worked out to be a really fun game, but it got tiering at the endgame because the balancing of the heavy units vs bugs favored the human too much.
It just became borring never being touched by the enemy.

Syndicate/SyndicateWars:
You only have 4 team members, but add new weapons and improvements all the time.
There were only a few types of missions, but overall it worked really well. The balance in the game was great, since the enemy got similar improvements to you,
or better ones, that you got to steal. The BullFrog team was concerned with good gameplay more than having a story.


---So, the lesson? I think the games work if you can make a good game mechanic that keeps the player interested.
If you don't have a good story, you need something that chalanges the player at every turn.
Note that i think Non-base-building RTS tend to play more like RPG's than RTS games.
If you are really going for a RTS, something like Homeworld comes to mind. The base building part doesn't really show at all in the single player games.
The point of the single player being the production of a stable fleet that you can carry though till the end(minus lots of dead fighters).