Wavinator
I'm not sure that TB games can be made more exciting... let me clarify.

The folks that enjoy TB games seem to think these games are exciting enough. They love the ability to take their time moving units to specific locations to implement a strategy and not be rushed into a mistake. So, to make the game more exciting for these people would be somewhat difficult to do. There really isn't a gauge to use in providing more excitement at least IMO.

I have been giving some thought to a similar situation. How would you make a RTS that appealed to TB game enthusiast?

What I have concluded is that the resource gathering of RTS games is the element that would need to be modified or eliminated to entice these players to play a RTS game. I may be wrong. But in my experience as a TB war gamer I stayed away from the RTS games because of that element. With the decline of war game developers (or more to the point, their transition from TBS to RTS) the war gamer is looking for something to fill the void.

C-Junkie Empire was my favorite game as well... it was a very simple game to play but loads of fun. In fact, Empire got me involved with TBS games. Of course, I now predominantly play RTS games – but as I state above, I’m looking for a way to broaden the appeal to hardcore TBS gamers.


edit: didn't add the right bracket to my bold tag

Edited by - Dak Lozar on March 16, 2001 2:02:17 PM

A quick variation on the "movie recap" idea-

What if- in battle- the animation was constant, with the AI choosing moves for you according to a battle plan that you have specified, as long as you do not choose a move yourself. During this time, you can build up a queue of moves at your leisure, without stopping the action. However, the game pauses at a set interval (every five minutes? less than that) to allow you to modify your battle plan. The bulk of the strategy would be made during the battle plan, with the move queue in place to allow reaction to sudden changes in the flow of battle (the equivalent of barking orders to your troops) and a more immediate "feel" to the action. More of a modified RTS than anything, but I think it could work.

A quick variation on the "movie recap" idea-

What if- in battle- the animation was constant, with the AI choosing moves for you according to a battle plan that you have specified, as long as you do not choose a move yourself. During this time, you can build up a queue of moves at your leisure, without stopping the action. However, the game pauses at a set interval (every five minutes? less than that) to allow you to modify your battle plan. The bulk of the strategy would be made during the battle plan, with the move queue in place to allow reaction to sudden changes in the flow of battle (the equivalent of barking orders to your troops) and a more immediate "feel" to the action. More of a modified RTS than anything, but I think it could work.

I agree with Dak. ''Exciting'' is not the answer.

Basically, I don''t like turn based RTS or combat games because I find it implausible. I haven''t been in many fights in my life, but the few I''ve experienced happened incredibly fast, and my opponents didn''t give me time to think about what I wanted to do.


So I guess I prefer Real Time because TB takes me straight out of the game... doesn''t suspend my belief ya know?

Anyway, this realisation got me to thinking, what''s a plausible way to have a TB scenario? I mean SWAT 3 and Fallout Tactics are TB, but for no plausible reason... anyway, I just wanted to throw some ideas into the pot. They mostly relate to wav''s Sci-Fi game, but I thought I''d post them anyway....

1. Maybe consider casting the player in your game as an AI instead of a human captain?

An AI could detonate the ship if necessary and fire off some kind of escape pod, then when picked up by an enemy ship, you could attempt to hack into the vessel and take control. This provides you with a plausible way to allow self-sacrifice. The obvious downside is you lose whatever highly trained crew members you have, and any upgrades you''ve subjected the ship to. Fair trade imho.

It also provides a plausible reason for having turn based combat. Imagine you''re an Artificial Intelligence, your reaction time would be so fast that situations really would seem like they were happing at a snails'' pace (turn based).

2. Space jousting, with ships instead of horses

This is a weird one I admit. But imagine you''re facing off against an enemy raider, you''ve matched speed and are racing towards him, you''re both moving at 100 light years a second or whatever, why would you fly up to each other, stop and then shoot each other?? You wouldn''t... it would be like jousting.... you''d both set your attack patterns, hurtle towards each other, take a swipe, pass each other, then you''d turn around, assess the damage and take another pass.

Maybe this is how you can make your turn based combat more exciting?? It''s not real turn based, but it''s definitely not real time..... Opinions?

3. Slow the whole thing down

Instead of trying to make it more exciting, make it more realistic... like submarine combat. It''s slow, it''s unexciting, but whoever gets the first real hit in wins. Make your combat like that. Instead of your ship having 15 laser banks, give it 1 ion cannon that takes 3 mins to charge... 1-minute turns would make this manageable. You could use the first 2 mins/turns to manoeuvre into position, the 3rd min/turn to aim at a specific part of the ship (vagrant story style maybe?), then on your fourth turn you fire. Not what some would call exciting, but at least you''re not forcing the player to think in terms of Turns, so it''s more realistic and they don''t care it''s not fast paced....

Now I realise it''s late and most of that prolly makes no sense. If someone wants me to clarify lemme know....

just my $0.02

quote:
The folks that enjoy TB games seem to think these games are exciting enough. They love the ability to take their time moving units to specific locations to implement a strategy and not be rushed into a mistake. So, to make the game more exciting for these people would be somewhat difficult to do. There really isn''t a gauge to use in providing more excitement at least IMO.

Sorry, Dak, but I''ve got to disagree here. Some parts of TB strat games, especially those with scripted beginnings that really make you work hard to establish your base, can be exciting, but as a person who does (sorry Wav) like TB games, I can tell you that they can get pretty boring.

quote:
What I have concluded is that the resource gathering of RTS games is the element that would need to be modified or eliminated to entice these players to play a RTS game.

I suggested something along these lines in some other thread. I think (if I''m understanding you right) my example combined HOMM II and Warcraft II: since micro-managing the flow of peasants to and from resource sites can be bothersome, all you would have to do would be send one there and flag the resource area as "yours" (like putting a flag next to a mine on HOMM II). Then, every so often (every 10 sec.s, minute, whatever) you gain x amount of that resource. To cater to those in the RTS crowd who do like micro-managing, allow them to send more peasants/peons/whatevers to that site, increasing resources that come in at each time interval.

quote:
What if- in battle- the animation was constant, with the AI choosing moves for you according to a battle plan that you have specified, as long as you do not choose a move yourself.

Ever played "Stars!"? It had a similar battle system--you defined various battle plans according to x ship class performs y action, then assigned each squadron with attack orders a battle plan. Unfortunately, there was no way jump in yourself--every player gave orders, then they were executed simultaneously and battles were replayed at the beginning of your turn on the "Battle VCR."




WNDCLASSEX Reality;
...
...
Reality.lpfnWndProc=ComputerGames;
...
...
RegisterClassEx(&Reality);


Unable to register Reality...what''s wrong?
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Dan Upton
Lead Designer
WolfHeart Software

draqza I agree. TB games can be exciting and boring... I have played a PBEM that took two months before anything of significance took place. Of course, this isn''t the norm now days the rules have been adjusted in an effort to make the games progress at a faster pace.

But the question was Can turn-based games be made more exciting without losing their thoughtful appeal? And I can''t think of anything that would increase the excitement of a TB game and keep the level of thought to a maximum. It would almost seem that if you modify a game to increase excitement that you would decrease the amount of thinking (Of course this is just my opinion, and I would love to be proven wrong) that takes place.

TBS games for the most part are played in a methodical manner while RTS games are methodical; they tend to be less cerebral. Don''t read that as ''stupid'', read it as more of a gut feeling thinking as opposed to logical thinking.

My ideal is based on Empire. Remove the resource-gathering element and give the commander (player) a budget based on the performance for the year before... An AI government will determine what the amount of funding that the commander will be given for the next year of game play. With this budget the commander can build any weapon or research new weaponry just as in normal RTSes.

Another of my ideals is to design the game to be played in RT mode or TB. This could be a way to bring some hardcore war gamers into RTSes.


Dak.

A problem with turnbase games is that they dont scale very well. Sure you can control say 1-8 characters ok, however anymore than that and it becomes really tiresome. Unlike RTS which scale up to 300 entites or more (as in Age of Empires 2). I think turn base games are already exciting, but on a differnt level. If your looking for crazy sensory overloaded adrenaline excitement, FPS and RTS are your best bet. However if your looking for nail bitting balls 2 the walls razors edge excitment, then a good turnbase game has this in spades (X-com and Combat Misson does this well). If you can solve the scaling problem with turnbase games, that would be something. Perhaps cooperative multiplayer simultanous turnbase, where each player can contorl a squad of 8 units.

I always wanted to make a X-com clone which used that mechanism. Where say 4 players, 2 on each side, controls a squad of 8 soliders (from a pool of soliders assigned to them when they enter the game, and they keep from misssion to mission) battle it out, or perhaps against the comptuer. Since its simultaonous turnbase, each turn will take no more than the specificed turn timelimt (say 5 minutes max), this gets arround the mulitplayer turnbase problem.

Good Luck

-ddn

quote: Original post by Dak Lozar

What I have concluded is that the resource gathering of RTS games is the element that would need to be modified or eliminated to entice these players to play a RTS game. I may be wrong. But in my experience as a TB war gamer I stayed away from the RTS games because of that element. With the decline of war game developers (or more to the point, their transition from TBS to RTS) the war gamer is looking for something to fill the void.

Thus.

The resource gathering element of RTS games seems to function in as a "turn based" element. Ie. It takes 2 minutes to gather enough resources to create a Knight, but 1 minute to get enough to make a untrained berzerker.

anon: That''s interesting insight, but the numbers are slightly off IMHO. HOMM II let you control up to 8 heroes, but after about 4 it became tedious having them move around (or dealing with the game asking you at the end of every turn if you''re sure you don''t want to move them). Letting multiple players control them may work out, but if you do it as a true TB where every player plays their turns separately, if you have several people playing, they may lose the effect of more units because there is more waiting involved.

Perhaps the Stars! TB system could be modified and work in the movie-playing idea. Here goes: On a multiplayer game, every user gives each of their units a waypoint or multiple waypoints, maybe targets to attack, etc. With only 8 units, this shouldn''t take more than a few minutes. The computer AI on the server system works in the background, developing the computer''s moves as the players do theirs. Then, after each player submits his turn, everything plays out in RT. That way, you allow some of the pace and action in playback of RTS, while not losing the thoughtful appeal of TBS. In addition, the squadron controllers may have to coordinate their attacks, if you introduce line-of-fire and allow friendly fire damage.

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And now, for a question: is anybody doing a strategy doc like dwarfsoft did for RPGs?