I am in the process of designing a Turn Based Strategy/Tactics game and searched far and wide on the net and forums for discussions on the design of such games. I was wondering if you guys got any more ideas, tips, advice, input and/or links to give a newbie. :3 Some points to clarify : - It is not a historical or realistic war simulation. (realism can be thrown out the window) - It is a small game using a small square grid. Each player control less than 10 "units". (i am a newbie game programmer and so its a small project :3) - I do not want a game that takes hours to play. Less than an hour even. - It is mainly designed for 1v1. - It is sci-fi. The reason why there isn't any much specific information is because I do not want your input to be restricted. The game is still in the stage where almost anything can be changed, but the above are some of the stuff which will probably remain constant. I have tried many turn based games on the net : Stick Figure Strategy, Battalion Nemesis (based on Advance War), TinyWarz, Wesnoth, Pox Nora, Bang! Howdy etc. I have looked at the rules for several miniature war games like Star Wars Tactics, WoW Minature etc. Some sample of the kind of info I am looking for : - Advice on how to improve the Turn Based Strategy (TBS) genre. - Innovative or "must have" concepts from other TBS. - Links to sites/articles about the design of TBS. - What makes a TBS fun or what is crucial, from your years of experience playing such games. - Specific tactics/strategy that you would love to see in a TBS. Of course, any input outside of the list are also welcomed!! :) [Edited by - Girsanov on March 5, 2009 1:16:49 AM]

TBS games are normally all about terrain, weapons and balance. Probably my current favorite example is Fire Emblem. If you have played that, then you must understand the simplistic balance it gives while yielding difficult game play. Advance Wars does the same thing--the reason why both of the games were successful.

I personally don't play many TBS games so I could not give any ideas to you on how to improve the genre. However, I will suggest to you to heavily study the game of chess--the original TBS game. Thousands upon thousands of people play Chess. Tournaments are held, strategies are still being discovered and there are many different styles of playing the game. Essentially, TBS games are a modified chess game.

Look at what makes Chess so successful from the movement system, the limitations, even the board size. All of it plays into what makes Chess so successful and so invigorating to different people. If you can understand Chess, then I believe making a TBS won't be nearly as difficult simply because you understand the foundations of what makes a TBS game good.

Hope this helps at least a little bit.

Don't forget X-COM!

I had an abandoned project a while back (to which I might pick up later) that had a couple of new and different ideas, or ideas I'd consider a bit different. Here's one:

- Group-Based Selection and Movement - Rather than cycling through a horde of units and telling each one to do XYZ, you can group your individual units into smaller "squads" to which are then treated as single units themselves, who hold the formation you set them to retain. This way, things would speed up a bit. You do this in RTSes, why not in TBSes?

I think the main set-back of TBS games and why more people aren't playing them is the amount of time it takes to play the game. Though you're aiming for a 1v1 game, I can recall many horrendous moments with me playing 2v2 or even larger than that using your standard turn-based engine - you have to wait so long for it to get to your turn. Of course you now have features in TBS games such as Simultaneous Turns and whatnot, but can't there be other ways to to speed up TBS games while maintaining the turn-based essence? < Was basically the main focus I had when I was making my project.

Just some general thoughts:

I believe one of the most important things to be your combat resolution system, because it will control the feel of the game and the strategies you can undertake. If it's highly deterministic (like Chess) then there will likely be right moves/strategies and wrong moves/strategies. If attacks have an element of randomization, this takes away from the strategy somewhat but likely makes the game more replayable since a player won't be able to just learn a series of moves and patterns to win the game.

I think a capture the flag theme would be great for such a board size, but you could also have a series of scenarios with attacker and defender. One mechanic I liked from the (now ancient) Advanced Squad Leader was that you had to play two matches switching sides. So you might have to defend a territory while massively outgunned, but then the next round you'd be the attacker and the overall victory would be determined by total number of points. This allowed for some creative situations.

What makes the game most enjoyable for me is strategic dependencies. If the game is all (to use chess as an analogy) all pawns it's not very interesting because you'll be able to predict the flow of the game ahead of time. Units that have unique restrictions and powers really help get past this. You could emulate chess in this regard if there's no restriction on realism, having units that (for instance) can only move diagonally but can only shoot vertically and horizontally. (Hmmm... maybe you can do a sci-fi chess where the units have hit points...)

I suggest looking at some of the European/German board games for ideas. These games are good in that they have a lot of focus on having really well designed rules, although only a thin veneer of a theme over the top.

A good place to start looking for ideas is at a web site called Board Game Geek ( http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ ). There are many games there where you can read the rule books to see the rules that the designers have used in the games.

If you want a quick game, I recomend to dump the idea of a grid (or large armies - I'll get to this in a bit) that the players are playing on. As you have stated you want sci-fi, then perhaps go with a series of stars/planets with wormholes between them.

This would give you locations and a topology, but allow players to quickly get into combat. Managing planets would give the players strategic choices, and the disposition of their ships would give them tactical choices.

Now, the other idea is to let the players have a single unit that they move around a grid, but have a bit of complexity in the design of the ship. For example, you could have a Capital ship with various locations that can be damaged, with equipment (shields, weapons, engines, etc). If a location is damaged enough, then they loose the equipment in that section, and if their shipp looses too many sections, then they loose the ship. Throw in a few environmental obstacles (planets, asteroids, gas clouds, etc) and you could ahve a game of Cat and Mouse (where the Cats are a couple of kilometres long... :D ) through a solar system.

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Advice on how to improve the Turn Based Strategy (TBS) genre.

Don't do the lots of units on a grid style TBS.

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Innovative or "must have" concepts from other TBS.

Have the players playing a single, but complex unit.

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Links to sites/articles about the design of TBS.

Gamasutra is a good start, but you might have to do a fair bit of searching to find articles directly relating to TBS, but there are many other ideas too that from other games (see the post mortems) that might be able to be incorporated into the game.

Also have a look at these wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intransitivity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory

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What makes a TBS fun or what is crucial, from your years of experience playing such games.

Short answer: Meaningful and Interesting Choices.

What this means is that when given a choice in the game, don't make the choices have only one good choice. Most choices (not all) should have the player weighing up the consequences of that choice and that these choices need to ahve negative consequences as well as good consequences.

So if Unit B is more powerful than Unit A and Unit C is more powerful than unit B, then why do I n3eed to bother with Units A and B. If I had to chose which unit I built, this would not constitute a meaningful or interesting choice.

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Specific tactics/strategy that you would love to see in a TBS.

1) Less complications, more complexity.

Complicated games ahve a lot of details, but usually few interactions between the components. Complex games ahve less details, but more interactions between the components.

Chess is a good example of Complexity. There are only 6 piece types (Rook, Knight, Bishop, King, Queen and Pawn), but how these interact makes for a very interesting game.

2) Asymmetric Warfare
Currently most TBS games are about two opponents with roughly equal forces. The strategy and tactics that get used are generally just "War of Attrition", who can wipe out the other side first. Sure, some missions can be capture points, but in Player vs Player, it is typically a meeting of equals.

Some games might ahve more or less unit for a particular side, but this is usually compensated for by having the units of the player with the fewer units being individually more powerful, so that it ends up being a symmetric warfare game.

3) Smaller scale
The current trend is to go for bigger and more epic battles. What if you did the reverse and made them smaller and more intimate. Imagine playing the game where you feel like you are in charge of a small squad and that each unit is more than an Attack/Defence stat.

Some great points raised here. We're also working on a small turn based tactics game and a lot of this is spot on with what I think about the subject.

I think you're right to focus on small; not just because you want a small project but also to deliver a better game. Less units/weapons means they can be very different from each other, and done well can lead to the holy grail for TBS: 'simple rules but deep tactics'.

Oh and check out Fantasy General (with dosbox to emulate it works perfectly), another great turn-based game.

Thanks to everyone for the wealth of information in the thread.

XCOM and Fantasy General were some of my favorite games growing up. :)

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Original post by Edtharan If you want a quick game, I recomend to dump the idea of a grid (or large armies - I'll get to this in a bit) that the players are playing on. As you have stated you want sci-fi, then perhaps go with a series of stars/planets with wormholes between them. This would give you locations and a topology, but allow players to quickly get into combat. Managing planets would give the players strategic choices, and the disposition of their ships would give them tactical choices.

I was quite interested in the planets connected by wormholes or jump gates concept but couldn't figure out how to resolve combat without loss of individual unit's identity.

Suppose we have 4 units engaging other 4 units in a single planet. How can I design it so that one unit targeting other isn't a mess? I thought of lumping them into group vs group but individual units will lose their identity and i had to introduce new rules on group formation/combat.

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Original post by Edtharan If you want a quick game, I recomend to dump the idea of a grid ... that the players are playing on.

If the vision of the game is to have a number of units closer to the mentioned ten units than one unit, then I'd agree. If not...

What about Eye of Judgment on the PS3? I'm not sure if one would want to define it as a TBS game, but it shares a number of characteristics with them (emphasis on terrain and resource-management, players do take turns, etc.). It uses a 3x3 grid that limits the number of units on the board, but a game can be played fairly quickly. The main difference between it and most TBS games is that there isn't much movement... that game is more about the deployment and status of units than moving them around the grid.

Nobody mentioned GO? Older than chess, simpler by design, deeper and more complex by far.

How about Blokus? That's a cool turn based strategy game.

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Original post by terminallytrivial What about Eye of Judgment on the PS3? I'm not sure if one would want to define it as a TBS game, but it shares a number of characteristics with them (emphasis on terrain and resource-management, players do take turns, etc.). It uses a 3x3 grid that limits the number of units on the board, but a game can be played fairly quickly. The main difference between it and most TBS games is that there isn't much movement... that game is more about the deployment and status of units than moving them around the grid.

Oh yes, I checked out Eye of Judgement before. It is definitely TBS. I think they have the same vision as I do : simple + low unit count in order to appeal to the masses.