Removing resource management from RTS games

Mephs · 2006-07-24T03:12:59

Hey all, Just thought I'd post about a topic that I've often thought about. It came to mind especially due to having now purchased and played (a lot of) Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War. Now one of the unique selling points of the game IIRC was supposed to be it's lack of resource management, yet when playing the game, although the resource management is greatly reduced, it is most definitely still there in the form of power and requisition points. Call me a purist.... but what if we stayed true to the 40k game and made a game that had nothing in the way of traditional resources. I still think that in DOW you spend a fair amount of time micro-managing your resources and troops, having to select abilities of troops manually, and set multiple AI options to make the troops take up varying stances while also having to manually reinforce units who somehow magically get reinforcements despite being a mile away from the base. The problem as far as I see it is that victory does not go to those that are tactical genius', but rather to those who are best at micromanagement and developing the best "rush" strategy. What if, as in the tabletop games, the strategy is on choosing your army at the beginning, perhaps with set or random reinforcements at certain times in the game. This (IMO) would force people to utilise their troops in the best manner, use the terrain to their advantage, and put the focus firmly back on strategy where the player might actually get enough time out from micromanagement to actually give proper consideration to their tactical situation. I think it would also help remove the see-saw effect in most RTS games where a battle goes on for hours as neither can get the upper hand, or the situation where a player knows they are going to lose, but the end is hours away because they are on a slippery slope to failing. With pre-defined armies, you can roughly predict how long a game will take, you can accommodate for long or short games as you wish and you need never wory about setting a unit building cap because you specify how many units are available at the beginning of the game! I can't remember as it's been a while, but did the Total War series work like this, or was that a different system again, I can't remember if you got to pick your armies or not? Either way, half the fun of the Games Workshop tabletop games for me was picking and equipping the army. I do suppose this has been done before, but in my opinion, not often enough. I can't help but wonder if there is more potential in the idea as it seems more natural to me, it's almost like these resource systems are tagged on as an afterthought to help alleviate otherwise dull combat mechanics. Having said that I really have enjoyed DOW, don't get me wrong, it's a definite step in the right direction, but it would be nice to see some more leaps in the direction it was heading in :P What do you think? Cheers, Steve

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Mephs July 22, 2006 06:10 PM

29 comments, last by Edtharan 18 years, 6 months ago

Edtharan

607

July 24, 2006 03:12 AM

Quote:
in DoW means that *if* a game goes on for hours, it's not because it simply takes ages for the loser to finally lose (typical slippery slope), but because the loser might actually not lose.

One of the best games I have ever played in DOW was at a LAN party with some friends.

The game started out even, but eventually I was the only person left on my team with 2 others on the other team. They had the advantage in resources as they controled most of the map (around 90%). Essentially all I had was my home base and 2 (vunerable stratigic points - they colection buildings could be destroyed but they could not get there without going through my base).

They had the reasources to keep throwing troops at me. I could keep them out of my base, and avoid loosing too many troops. It was a complete stalemate.

Now her is my point: The resources allowed them to to take on certain tactics and strategies which were differnet from mine. This difference is what made for a varied battle. If there was no resources in this I would have been able to break out and stomp them into the ground.

The resources change the game from a purely tactical game into a stratigic game (if I have been able to control 1 extra resource point for a few minutes I would have been able to build up my troops and made a push to escape my base).

This game actually went on for 5 hours (play time but there were a few breaks during that time where we pause the game) and we never got bored (either did the players that were wiped out early on as they started their own game or watched ours).

I think that resources offer a certain level of stratigic thinking in RTS games and stop them from being totaly tactical only games.

So resources are important for this type of game, but it does not mean that you can't have a fun game without resources. It just changes the style of the game from a Real Time (or turn based) Strategy Game into a Real Time/Turn Based Tactical Game.

Removing resource management from RTS games

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Removing resource management from RTS games

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