A new style of RTS?

Dauntless · 2002-02-06T16:52:25

I was originally going to title the post; "A first person RTS?" but that would have been a little too misleading, although its somewhat accurate. I got to thinking about how my idea for an RTS was essentially radically different from both turn based and real time games when I started listing "features" in Kylotan's post. In basically all strategy games, you the commander essentially have a God-like third person power over your country and your fighting forces. Yes, some games have morale, and yes, most games have some kind of fog of war, but really, you the player had very much God-like powers over your troops and your nation. What if instead, you the player had much less influence? What if you only saw the battlefield according to how much information you received from your units? What if your economy was largely self-automated, with only partial input from your choices? What if you played through an "Avatar", a representation of the physical presence of you the player? Think of this avatar as the communication link of you the player, to all of your troops. Therefore you do not directly control your troops, but rather through your avatar. This avatar in turn gives the orders to your troops, and your factories. Depending on technology and distance (and in some cases enemy intervention), your avatar may be unable to communicate with and control your units. By doing this, focus goes less from your actual units, to your ability to ORDER your units. I think my main problem with strategy games is that really, they are not about the human factor. Instead they focus on what combinations of units best defeats another type of unit. Once this is figured out, you manipulate your resources to build these set of units. It honestly doesn't really model what a strategic commander has to worry about. In the real world, a much less powerful army can defeat a stronger one, if it has superior leaders, better intelligence, better flexibility and better communication. I've also said the quote many times before, but I'll say it again, it's easier to break a man's will than his body. A powerful army, if its demoralized or has poor leaders can be beaten by a determined force that is well led. But it's nigh impossible to do this with current RTS (and even many turn based ones). And I think its because of the stress of play on the UNITS, rather than the intabgibles. What do I mean by that? Game designers focus on the obvious...the units, the technologies, the resources. But they forget about the intangible concepts of morale, communication, intelligence, and command structure. Why worry about morale? Let the units fight to the death. Communication? What are you talking about, you click on a unit, and you have access to it!! Intelligence? What are you smoking....if your unit sees it, you see it! Command structure is a joke, just drag a square around your rag tag army, hit CTRL+1, and you've got your organized unit right there. And who needs officers? Give them a way point, and if a n enemy comes in sight, ATTACK!! Sounds kind of silly doesn't it...but that's exactly what 90% of RTS's do. The gameplay focuses not on the player's ability to effective be a LEADER and focus on ORDERS, but instead games make you focus on your units and your resources. I think that if you have a game where instead, information to you as a player is limited, and the access to your units is also limited, then it introduces an entirely new way of thinking and playing. So while you won't be a general in the first person point of view, you will only have access to things that you would depending on the technology, your "avatars" location, and your units location. Well, here's the post from Kylotan's thread....read it and see if you get a feel for the kind of strategy game I envision: 1) Scaleable Unit organization- This would be something along the lines of Kohan, in that you don't just make units piecemeal, but you design individual units around a core of units. Basically you use units as building blocks, not as end fighting units in and of themselves. 2) Command and Control a. Chain of Command- each base unit of organization has a leader or captain. Orders are issued from the player, to the commander of that organizational unit (let's call it OU from now on, although that gives me the willies from it's M$ networking heritage...but I digress ). Instead of having one little unit that the player controls (or clicks and drags a box on to control), the player really controls and gives orders to the commander of the unit, who in turn controls the OU. This chain of command goes from the highest level Army and Corp commanders, all the way down to the Lieutenants in charge of platoons. b. Command Interface- This is a pseudo scriptable interface that the player can give rudimentary "game logic" for the commander's AI to use. Depending on the rank of the officer to which he is interfacing with, certain routines or events may or may not be possible (for example, the ability to call in for artillery of air strikes without the player's intervention). I guess you can think of the officers as a class that inherits from the base class Commander. Then you can specialize the interfaces that particular officer objects have, which in turn control the behavior (i.e. methods) that can give "orders" to the OU. The player's pseudo-scripting will essentially allow the player to access these interfaces and potentially even methods of the officers, although they can not alter the base class. I suppose it could be possible to make major officers almost like the avatars in Black and White, but with more initial intelligence. c. Communication and Intelligence- Instead of the player having a magical connection to every OU that makes the orders go through 100% of the time, orders must make it to their commanders effectively. I propose having an "avatar" that represents YOU the player. It can be a mobile command bunker, a general on a horse or whatever. But this represents your ability to actually send orders to your subordinate officers. Depending on technology, the visibility of the battlefield will be known to you only through what your AVATAR has access to. So, even if say for example, you have a Reconnaissance unit out patrolling, that scout unit only "sees" for it's commanding officer. Once your Avatar "communicates" with this commanding officer, then you "see" what the reconnaissance unit sees. Think of it like each OU is a node on a circuit board (or network). These nodes are unconnected until you purposefully make a link. So you the player through your avatar may not know exactly what's going on, but the OU's commander, and his superior commander will know. And this reflects back on point a) and b). How smart are your AI commanders, and will they tell you this information in time? Will they react appropriately? This makes intelligence gathering and communication links incredibly important. Who cares if you sent off your great Army if you can't effectively communicate with them? 3) Seperate Resource Building and Warfare- Resource management should be handled on a different time scale than combat, or should be handled by "wizards" that take into consideration the players overriding goals. RTS's try to simulate that a commander has to worry about logistics and fueling his army, but in the real world, a nation has it's generals, and it has its politicians. Trying to have the two together invites trouble 4) Supply lines and Logistics- Speaking of which, units should not be able to last indefinately on their own unless they are highly specialized units. Units begin to lose their efficiency and or mobility depending on how far they are from resupply. This can be implemented as a variable within the unit object type that determines how long it can go without resupply, and how much maintenance and upkeep it needs. Can also factor into morale 5) Morale- Wow, one segue right into the other Commanders give orders to their units, but that doesn't mean they will obey. Morale will be determined by damage to the OU, if the leader is good (or even alive), a threat factor (are they facing imminent destruction or is it a cake walk?), and hosts of other factors. Rallying units that have broken or are shaken will be a critical factor in getting units functional. 6) Skilled Human production- It's takes more than just raw materials to produce armies, you have to train the personnel and the leaders for them as well. This includes officers, elite units, crews for vehicles, scientists and other support personnel. Along with raw material resource modeling, there should also be a "people" factor. This will be based on education levels, as well certain other factors. (edit.) I think Morale along with communication is one of the most underlooked aspects of strategy gaming. As I have tried to stress, strategy games focus on UNITS, and not on functionality. In other words, strategy assume that A) you automatically have the ability to control a unit 100% of the time b) you automatically know everything that a unit knows and c) you have access (the ability to communicate to) to a unit 100% of the time. These are fundamental flaws I think that would, if they were not implemented require a totally different way of thinking. In Morale's case, a player has to worry not just about how physically powerful his unit is, but will he be able to control it once he's se it out. What good is it to make powerful units if you can't access them or control them? And that's precisely what LEADERSHIP (and strategy) are about. The other drastic difference in my ideas is the concept of Commanders as nodes of effectors of unit behavior. Huh? Well, units don't do anything in and of themselves, they do what their commanders tell them to do. If the commander dies in combat, then they promote the next in charge. But it's the commanders which put the orders in effect, hence making the unit ACT. In a normal and optimal chain of command, the player's avatar orders the OU's commander what to do. However, there are times where chain of command is cut off (each OU will have a range that it must be in contact with, otherwise it is out of chain of command). If it is cut off, it relies on the native AI of that commander. Some countries are better at this than others (America for example). SO in a nutshell, to get a OU to do something, you have to go through several communication nodes. The first node is your avatar, the next node is the next highest Commander, and so on down the chain. The links to these nodes of communication can be broken for many reasons, and therefore having intelligent enough commanders to act on their own is vital. Hopefully you see a trend in my ideas. It stresses less on the materialistic and individualistic nature of the combat, but rather the human side to it. Can you get your order to your commander? Once the commander gets the order, will the unit obey? Can he rally his troops? Do you have the skilled crews to man the vehicles? How do you organize units to cover their weaknesses rather than send them out piecemeal or as a mob? If my communication links get cut, will my officers be able to fight effectively? In essence, I'm taking away the "God" view of strategy games, and trying to make the player do what a real battlefield commander would have to do. Even if your avatar dies, it's not the end of the game, you'll assume a new avatar, however, your army as a whole may suffer a huge morale shock, not to mention there will be a time delay where all officers will have to react on their own (i.e. no input from the player). Edited by - Dauntless on February 4, 2002 12:59:12 AM

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Dauntless February 04, 2002 11:40 PM

11 comments, last by Dauntless 22 years, 10 months ago

IADaveMark

3,839

February 05, 2002 01:40 PM

Close Combat has an interesting twist on the morale thing. Morale is boosted by things such as proximity to commanding officers (esp. those with good leadership), friendly armor, cover, etc. If an individual''s morale falls too far, he may run screaming away from the battle.

Also, you are commanding by way of suggestion in a lot of the situations in the game. You can tell a group of soldiers to go someplace dangerous and they may just flat out refuse and tell you that they can''t go there.

Harpoon II (was a fantastic game I would like to see someone resurect!) had some of the lines of communications issues. If you didn''t have a data link to a unit, you couldn''t see their recon. Also, there was a more hands off approach to combat. You often didn''t tell them to do specific unit attacks... you told them to do a mission in this area or protect this area, etc. The AI was really decent for the time that it was out (93/94?) and the complexity of the game.

I DO like the direction you are going with this, though.

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
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Dave Mark - President and Lead Designer of Intrinsic Algorithm LLC
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Silvermyst

113

February 06, 2002 08:47 AM

Saw a really interesting Nova show yesterday about how much emotion controls our reasoned actions.

The most interesting part was where they described that certain areas of the brain deal with certain emotions and that when one of these areas is blocked for some reason, the brain is unable to create the emotion that was located in that area.

Anyway, it came down to the fact that we have a part in our brain that controls reasoning, and parts that control emotions. They work together in our everyday life 24/7. Every decision you make that is not 100% logical is made with help from the emotional brain. People who for some reason lose control of the emotional part of the brain are left with a life where they can make no decisions. Imagine going to a store to buy product A. Reason will tell you ''I need product A. I only have this much money.'' But unless you know that one brand is statistically better than another brand, the emotional brain will make the final decision of which brand to buy. And when the product is satisfactory, the emotional brain will store that information so that when you have to make the same decision later on, it will send your brain a pleasant stimulant, making you pick that same brand again.

Okay, now, in RTS games, we usually assign certain abilities to units. Most of them are physical, some are mental. Strength, speed, health etc are obviously physical. Morale and intelligence are mental. If we want to design an RTS where the units themselves make a lot of decisions, we can use intelligence for that task. A unit will see two oncoming enemies, deduct which one is stronger, which one is weaker, calculate its chances of survival against either enemy, figure out if it can count on backup, choose a weapon etc. All sorts of decisions based on reason. During the fight, or even already before, morale can play a part. If the unit is losing, a failed roll for morale might make the unit flee. Still, the emotional part of a unit is pretty simple if we let it be just a morale check. There are so many more emotions that could play a role in combat.
Fear: what does the unit fear? (goblins) When does this fear come into play? (when faced with more than one enemy goblin) Can the unit overcome this fear? (only when enough friendly troops are nearby) What happens when the unit is overcome by fear? (he runs away)
Anger: what makes the unit angry? (seeing an orc kill a friendly unit) What happens when the unit gets angry? (he will focus on the enemy unit that caused the anger and not rest until that unit is dead)
Sorrow: what makes the unit sad? (seeing a friendly unit that he knows fall in combat) What happens as a result of this sadness? (the unit will falter in combat)
Bloodlust, joy, love, bravery, etc. There are tons of emotions that we might be able to use in an RTS game, giving units a chance to use more than just their reasoning to make decisions.

How much of an impact emotions have could depend on the individual units. Experienced fighters will be able to push their emotions aside, having been there, and having done that. Rookie fighters will be easily overcome by their emotions, perhaps running away at the first sight of blood.

I guess the emotionas would be part of a detailed morale system.

Just tossing some out there...

You either believe that within your society more individuals are good than evil, and that by protecting the freedom of individuals within that society you will end up with a society that is as fair as possible, or you believe that within your society more individuals are evil than good, and that by limiting the freedom of individuals within that society you will end up with a society that is as fair as possible.

Dauntless

Author

314

February 06, 2002 04:52 PM

Silver-

Some interesting thoughts, and I sort of had a similar idea. I thought that there would be several components that would affect a units morale. These would include both Discipline rating as well as a Courage rating. I think there is a difference between the two. Discipline means being able to follow your orders no matter how you feel...whether you are frightened or angry or sad. Courage however mainly just deals with a unit''s overall raw ability to withstand fear, not necessarily anger. Take for example Southern troops during the Civil War. The majority of these troops had a far greater Courage factor than Northern troops, although their discipline scores were not necessarily any higher. There was a famous unit called the Louisiana Tigers that was known for making near suicidal charges, but they would also frequently act on their own impulse, much to the chagrin of their officers (they actually raided a train station once after kicking out the defenders...instead of following up to not allow the Union troops to reorganize). So this unit had tremendous Courage, but very poor discipline.

I think a good morale system needs to take lots of factors into consideration:

1) Quality of Leader: Would you follow this leader to hell and back, or do you want to frag him in his sleep?
2) Distance from next friendly unit: Knowing you are far away from help makes things scarier
3) Seeing other friendly units route or break: Seeing half of your Army route doesn''t do wonders for your morale
4) Overall odds: IS the unit going up against a Poodle, or a Pit Bull Terrier?
5) Distance from base or supply lines: Knowing you have a long way from your base can be good or bad. Sort of like how Cortez burned his ships to spur his troops on
6) Mission Severity: Is it a simple seek and destroy, or a last stand at the bridge? You won''t stick your neck out if the mission doesn''t really matter.
7) Fatigue: the more tired you are, the weaker your will and resolve

These are just a few small things that I can think of off the top of my head. And like I said, the internal characteristics of the unit itself also come into play. I see morale as a fluctuating score, but characteristics like Discipline and Courage are relatively static. Most wargames have morale conditions like Confident, Steady, Shaken, Broken and Routed. Depending on the level of your morale, certain actions become more or less diffucult to do. Morale checks also have to be made at certain times...for example, when charging a unit, or being charged. SO it''s not necessarily true that a unit won''t obey at all, but there might be a delay, or it may not be as effective.

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount." - General Omar Bradley

A new style of RTS?

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