It's cool in theory to have tons of tactics and ways of winning in a strategy game. But you can have too much of a good thing. If there are three dozen means of attack at any given time, for the sake of balance there'd have to be three dozen means of defense. If you wanted to keep a wide variety of options (in terms of units and their abilities) yet not bog down the player in terms of having to defend against everything, would it work to break the vulnerabilities into discreet sets and then either map them to regions of the playing area or phases of the game? For example, let's say that you have a unit that can freeze other units in place. One way to balance it is to limit it to freezing units of a specific class (say elves, or mechs) so that an opposing player can build a counter. Now if you have offensive tactics that are this specific matched to a wide variety of counters, and you wanted a very wide variety of tactics (fire, cold, entrenchment, poison gas, lasers, liches, submarines, etc.) what could you do to keep the balance? Would you make cold magic ineffective in the desert, or lasers useless underwater? (Position dependent tactics) Or would you limit them to phases of the game, such as advanced units you tech up to that ignore sets of tactics (mechs are immune to cold and poison gas but are still vulnerable to lightning and lasers)? Or is there another method?

Limit the number of tactics to only what you need. If you have that many ways of doing things, you shouldn't be thinking about how to limit them to reasons or times, but rather think about which ones are not needed. After all, the more of them you have, the less often you will run into them. Have a few and use them often and make them complex and interesting features.

And to actually answer your question as stated, both. Lasers make no sense under water, nor do gases. They may also be defenses that are advanced and you need to tech up to them. On top of that, maybe you are teching up to a defense which makes a region immune to something. Ie, your biotech advances make the trees and plants of a whole forest absorb and detox poison gas.

I dislike having things such as "vulnerable to lightning" or "strong versus fire". It seems like a rather arbitrary way to balance things out. It just means that if they've got lots of units that can resist lightning, use fire instead. I've always preferred games where the balancing seems more natural. Archers, naturally, are the defense against air units because they can attack air, unlike knights. Knights are clearly the counter to mages because they ride horses quickly and chop down the mages before they can use anything. There's no explicit stating of "strong versus mages", instead it is simply fast and deals damage quickly while the mage has low health and slow movement, but powerful damage. Defending is done by identifying why they can counter mages (they can kill it before it gets spells off) and how you can get around that (defend the mage or hide it behind impassable terrain). Having three dozens means of defense does not necessarily mean that there have to be three dozen new units or three dozen special abilities. Positioning creates many opportunities for defense. So does the terrain. Using transports wisely can even be considered a defense. Guarding weak units with tougher ones is a defense. I prefer seeing these types of defenses.

Quote:

If there are three dozen means of attack at any given time

The human brain is onyl really capable of handleing 7 (+/- 2) choices at a time. So givieng the players more than that will degrade the value of giving the player those choices.

I would actually aim for the lower value (5 which is 7 - 2) as a good number of choices. This is because when a player is makeing a choice, there are other factors in their mind at the same time. This means that players cna handle the number of choices as well as consider other factors and events that are occuring.

Perhaps, rather than shuffling vulnerabilities, one should shuffle choices in a similar manner. Quite simply, even if your guy carries a flame-thrower, he's not going to bother using it on the evil lava monster of death. Similarly a 'knight' would not be able to swing his sword at a dragon in mid-air. Context sensitive combat and defence options would allow for greater diversity in combat without swamping the player.

I think it is important to have vulnerabilities that are entirely unbalanced. I think in strategy games defense should never be as large a concern as offense (especially in games involving resource control).

Starcraft, for instance, which is arguably the most popular RTS game of all time (biggest pro scene in the world at the moment... I think...), has a lot of abilities you might call "imbalanced." You can't counter psi storms, you can't counter dark swarm or plague, you cant counter irradiate. Although there ARE a lot of counters built into the game, there are also a lot of abilities that are left to pretty much be a decisive advantage. In Starcraft all of these "imbalanced" abilities are as you suggested balanced by being restricted to a phase in the game (unlocked by tech tree). However, it is at the time when these abilities are unleashed that the best Starcraft games come out, and why its fast-paced action has made it such a huge hit in Korea.

So I guess what I'm saying is that, instead of making 12 defenses for 12 attacks, just add another 12 attacks :)

Keep in mind that while they may not be balanced with another defense against them, they are balanced with another attack for each of the other sides. No side is more powerful or innately better. Thats balance. Balancing an attack with a defense against it is just a way of reaching that end goal of overall balance.

Quote:

Original post by Wavinator If you wanted to keep a wide variety of options (in terms of units and their abilities) yet not bog down the player in terms of having to defend against everything...

Surely we don't want the player to be able to realistically defend against everything anyway?

The sort of gameplay you generally want would involve players scouting his opponents out and anticipating their movements, tailoring defenses to match the nature of the threat. Meanwhile they will also be building an attack force specifically to target any weaknesses. All of this is built on top of the intelligence war: the need to hide your own movements and the need to detect your opponents.

The sort of gameplay you generally want to avoid involves players constructing unassailable fortresses that are proof against all modes of attack, whilst massing an enormous glob of units to march into their enemies base when they finally get bored with base building, or they hit their unit cap.

If you were to make it impossible (or wildly impractical) to develop impenetrable defenses, there will always be weaknesses. Even the most turtley turret farmers will have to find their opponent's weaknesses before their opponents find theirs.

Quote:

For example, let's say that you have a unit that can freeze other units in place. One way to balance it is to limit it to freezing units of a specific class (say elves, or mechs) so that an opposing player can build a counter.

I have mixed feelings about hard counters, and I think it basically boils down to how intuitive they are. It's a no-brainer to realise that a SAM Turret might be a hard counter to a Fighter Plane, but without a decent amount of game world context, it's not very intuitive to make the connection that Moon Ogres are a hard counter for Space Elves.

If the players are already familiar with your game world, it helps a lot. I suspect a large part of the reason why I enjoyed Dawn Of War so much was that I was already very familiar with the background of most of the units, and so many of the counters felt very intuitive.

Quote:

Would you make cold magic ineffective in the desert, or lasers useless underwater? (Position dependent tactics)

I'd like to see environmental factors having a significant effect. However as with hard counters, I'd be wary of absolute effects unless they are extremely intuitive. You also have to be careful with how you designate terrain. A torpedo ONLY works underwater, that's a no-brainer, and it's obvious if you're underwater or not. Cold magic being ineffective in the desert is a bit less obvious (one might argue that the shock of extreme temperature differences might make it MORE effective. Or they might argue that there's no reason why a desert couldn't be cold anyway) and knowing exactly when you're in the desert or not is a bit less clear cut - the borders of a desert are not so clearly defined.

Overall though I like position dependent effects. A good example might be to make Gas troopers devastatingly effective in confined spaces (in buildings, or areas sheltered from the wind) but dramatically weaker (although not entirely useless) in exposed open areas, where wind can disperse the gas more quickly.

Quote:

Or would you limit them to phases of the game, such as advanced units you tech up to that ignore sets of tactics (mechs are immune to cold and poison gas but are still vulnerable to lightning and lasers)?

The risk here is that you'll render early units obsolete, and therefore not worth building. Why would I start my build order with gas troopers instead of laser marines if the former will be obsolete by the end of the game? Perhaps gas troopers might be stronger early game, but that rarely works: the early game is SO important in RTS games that an imbalance there can rapidly become a dominant rush strategy. Who cares if gas troopers are rendered obsolete at tier 3 if the enemy always dies to a gas trooper rush at tier 0?