I very much agree and hope my earlier post wasn't taken to mean getting ride of base building just because its current conventions are silly. I just meant that because of how silly they are, its an opportunity to re-imagine the entire aspect of the genre in a new form.

Quote:

Original post by sunandshadow Base building is kind of the fun part though. I enjoy being the ruler of all I survey and watching a city grow and thrive under my hand. There's no reason to have a war if you don't need territory because you're outgrowing your own, or someone's trying to exterminate you to steal your territory. Yeah combat is an exciting text of skill, but philosophically it's not interesting because it's not constructive. On the other hand building and evolving your tech and multiplying your citizens and harvesting your land are all constructive. I believe that the ability to build a bigger more complicated base every mission is one of the main rewards that keeps people playing through a single-player campaign.

I'm the same way - that's why I tend to enjoy the tycoon-like management sims more than RTSes; they're all about the base-building and avoid the combat. If you're into the base buidling aspects rather than the combat, have you considered making one of those and integrating it with a story?

You are looking more toward a City Builder than an RTS by the sounds of it. Try playing Caesar III, or maybe Settlers.

Quote:

Original post by Trapper Zoid I'm the same way - that's why I tend to enjoy the tycoon-like management sims more than RTSes; they're all about the base-building and avoid the combat. If you're into the base buidling aspects rather than the combat, have you considered making one of those and integrating it with a story?

I do like the combat - I like the aspect of cleaning all enemies or monsters off the world (although philosophically that's kind of disturbing - I like genocide? o.O; ) My choice would have been to go with tactical combat combined with building, like harvest moon plus army of pet monster combat like in eternal eyes or Disgaea. But it wasn't up to me, the genre was determined by vote to be RTS.

Quote:

Original post by sunandshadow Base building is kind of the fun part though. I enjoy being the ruler of all I survey and watching a city grow and thrive under my hand. There's no reason to have a war if you don't need territory because you're outgrowing your own, or someone's trying to exterminate you to steal your territory. Yeah combat is an exciting text of skill, but philosophically it's not interesting because it's not constructive. On the other hand building and evolving your tech and multiplying your citizens and harvesting your land are all constructive. I believe that the ability to build a bigger more complicated base every mission is one of the main rewards that keeps people playing through a single-player campaign.

There is a large difference between base building, and base management. I think too many RTS have used the building side of things, and RTS could benefit from more management and less building... If, only a realistic approach, building a castle shouldn't be possible within 1 hour, it takes years... Of course, games aren't realistic, but I'm sure there are analogue ways to generate gameplay based on pre-existing buildings' management. After all, buildings, on their own, rarely have a focus. It is what is done within that matters. IF you barracks gets destroyed, so what? we'll use that gymnasium instead... Sure, some buildings have more developped inner logistics, but RTS have come too far making each building so narrow in use.

War is about choices, how to react to things. I'm sure its been seen before, that a camp was made up in haste, or a building cleared of its former use to house a new use (say, training troops). I think the whole idea of managing structures could be predominant. Not necessarily stopping the player from building entirely, but putting more focus on the actual management of logistics within the base.

Caesar built a handful of 'castles' in a matter of days in his campaigns. You would be surprised at how much you can do in a day when you have several thousand men under your command, and don't do anything too fancy.

Quote:

Original post by Orymus Quote: Original post by sunandshadow Base building is kind of the fun part though. I enjoy being the ruler of all I survey and watching a city grow and thrive under my hand. There's no reason to have a war if you don't need territory because you're outgrowing your own, or someone's trying to exterminate you to steal your territory. Yeah combat is an exciting text of skill, but philosophically it's not interesting because it's not constructive. On the other hand building and evolving your tech and multiplying your citizens and harvesting your land are all constructive. I believe that the ability to build a bigger more complicated base every mission is one of the main rewards that keeps people playing through a single-player campaign. There is a large difference between base building, and base management. I think too many RTS have used the building side of things, and RTS could benefit from more management and less building... If, only a realistic approach, building a castle shouldn't be possible within 1 hour, it takes years... Of course, games aren't realistic, but I'm sure there are analogue ways to generate gameplay based on pre-existing buildings' management. After all, buildings, on their own, rarely have a focus. It is what is done within that matters. IF you barracks gets destroyed, so what? we'll use that gymnasium instead... Sure, some buildings have more developed inner logistics, but RTS have come too far making each building so narrow in use. War is about choices, how to react to things. I'm sure its been seen before, that a camp was made up in haste, or a building cleared of its former use to house a new use (say, training troops). I think the whole idea of managing structures could be predominant. Not necessarily stopping the player from building entirely, but putting more focus on the actual management of logistics within the base.

It doesn't have to be a castle that's built. Not to mention that in a fantasy setting building is probably being done with magic, and you could probably build stuff pretty darn fast with magic, or summon it into existence from elsewhere. Could also make a source of magical energy a main gatherable.

That would be an interesting point. :)
As for Caesar, you couldn't call his wooden fortified camps castles, but I reckon the romans had impressive techniques all-round. Quite unequal in terms of ingeniosity to this day as a matter of fact (not Ceasar alone, but all of Roman's might). The problem is that a feudal setting alone couldn't benefit from the same speed (there was clearly a setback in the middle ages... and yes, cathedrals took forever).

The fantasy side, though, as underlined by sunandshadow, could give a 'quick fix' in that regard...

the question is how?

How would depend on the specific setting (which we can't discuss here). But for example, instead of a building, a structure might be a chalk pentagram required to prepare an area for a spell to be cast, or it might be a wall of ice, or a seed planted then commanded to grow into some shape, or a fire that might have to slowly get hotter until it boiled a potion which released a cloud of smoke that had a continuous area affect... There's so many possibilities. [smile]

sunandshadow:

I am not sure if this has been brought up at all, but I suggest you look at a mod of Civ4 titled "Fall From Heaven", more particularly, the branch "Rise from Erebus". This is a HEAVILY modified form of CivIV based in a fantasy world which offers a large number of races, and the sheer number of game play options it has is absolutely ridiculous. both race and religion play a much larger role then other games I have seen (access to heros, spells, unique units, etc), with almost all units being unique or variations of other units. It may be a good idea to look to that for inspiration a little bit.