Alternatives to micro-management

Dak Lozar · 2001-12-21T22:06:31

Here is a brief excerpt from my Design Treatment for a RTS that I have been designing in my free time. I propose a RTS that is purely strategy and does not require the player to be directly responsible for gathering resources. Here it is: %<--------------------------------------------------- is a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game that follows the genre of games such as Command & Conquer, C&C:Red Alert, Starcraft and most recently, Cossacks and Empire Earth. Although is an RTS much of the game play will be borrowed from a Turn Based Strategy (TBS) game. Empire was, in the late 1980''s, one of the games that made war gaming cool. It had a Play by email (PBEM) feature that allowed players to play against opponents from around the world. The game play that will borrow from Empire is the manner in which you ''collected'' resources. In today''s RTS games you gather resources, such as Food, Stone, Wood and Gold with peasants or non-military units. In Empire wealth or resources were not gathered but ''awarded'' to the player based on the population of his empire. The number of citizens had a direct impact on the amount of taxes that you collected (or something to that affect). will distribute resources in a similar manner. will create a government (possibly the player will select the form of government) that will track the players actions and the number of citizens that belong to the empire. Other factors will be applied to the calculation and then at the end of each fiscal year the player will be given a budgeted amount of money with which he can build new weapons, enlist more troops etc. The player will not build new citizens. The citizens will be created based on the conditions such as, economic, social, political. Essentially the citizens will procreate much in the way that citizens in the real world do and for the same reasons. will be Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven in many aspects. As you have seen above the Government and the citizens will be AI driven. The player will command units that are AI driven as well. Another element of Empire that will borrow is the ability to set patrol routes for tanks, ships and aircraft. The way it works is like this: You decide you want to guard an area around a port – place a few of you ships into a group and then select the start and end points of the patrol. The group of ships will move from the start to the end and back again. This group (or single unit) will continue to patrol until given orders to perform another action or when it detects enemy action. Most every element of a traditional RTS is present. The one missing element of the traditional RTS is micro-management or collection of resources. Typically the player has to create a special unit to mine or harvest resources. My ideal of a Real Time Strategy game is strategy. The collection of resources isn’t necessarily strategy. As stated above the player’s performance determines the budget that he is awarded for the next year. %<--------------------------------------------------- I know there are many debates concerning too much MM in RTSes or too little - I think what I propose is an alternative to MM or at least the part that I don''t like Dak LozarElysian Productions, Inc.

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Dak Lozar December 19, 2001 11:59 AM

10 comments, last by Dak Lozar 23 years ago

Dak Lozar

Author

122

December 21, 2001 08:45 AM

quote: Original post by LessBread

<SNIP OF SOME GOOD COMMENTS>

It seems like too much time is spent building and not enough on fighting. If you can come up with a solution, you''ll be onto something big - no doubt.

I agree with you partially. I tend to think that it''s difficult to do too many things. Building of cities, specifically the buildings that allow you to create better units, isn''t the problem. To me the problem stems from having to constantly find resources to gather. So, limiting the amount of MM that a player has to perform to aquire resources is in my mind the key.

As LessBread said in an earlier post - it''s sort of like Simcity meets C&C. Yet, at the same time it''s more like one of those hardcore war games where you just stategize a scenario... make sense?

I will have to say that as you write up these things (or as you revisit them after long down times) you weave in and out of your initial thoughts for the design. I suppose this can be a good thing.

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

Dave Dak Lozar Loeser
"Software Engineering is a race between the programmers, trying to make bigger and better fool-proof software, and the universe trying to make bigger fools. So far the Universe in winning."--anonymous

Dak Lozar

Author

122

December 21, 2001 10:06 PM

I went out and bought a game called Real War as part of my research I have to play as many RTSes as possible - right?

It''s a pain to be a gamer sometimes - programming games and playing games... what could be more fun? Designing games!

At anyrate, I found this game to have a limited demand on the MM of collecting resources. They utilized the supply depot and generator style of resource gathering which, is cool but it''s a pain to have to continuously build those generators. As you build more buildings - you utilize more power and thus you have to build generators.

All in all the game is fun. It''s suppose to have been based on a game that the Joint Chiefs of Staff training game for the U.S. Military. *SHRUG* It is a step in the direction I would like to see more of and am designing my game towards...

Anyone else played this game? Comments?

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

Dave Dak Lozar Loeser
"Software Engineering is a race between the programmers, trying to make bigger and better fool-proof software, and the universe trying to make bigger fools. So far the Universe in winning."--anonymous

Alternatives to micro-management

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Alternatives to micro-management

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