Rock/Paper/Scissors can work very well in some situations, particularly if the relationship develops naturally. Take Homeworld for example. In that game there are basically three classes of vessel; the small fighters/interceptors, the somewhat heavier frigates, and the large capital ships.
These three classes naturally developed an RPS relationship: Fighters beat capitals - the fighters are quick enough to evade the slow-tracking turrets of the capitals, so can slowly wear them down.
Frigates beat fighters - Frigates have fast tracking turrets, and are more mobile than the capitals, making them the natural enemy of fighters.
Capitals beat frigates - The frigates are too slow to evade the big guns.

This is a natural stratification, not an arbitrary design decision, and as such it works very well.

quote: Original post by superpig
I just completed C&C Gold (GDI) yesterday - and I disagree with the ''unit nemesis'' thing. NOD have better units - stealth buggies, SAM sites, etc. which don''t have matching nemesis units on the GDI side.

But a SAM site on its own was supposed to be a nemesis to the helicopter units. That is, one SAM site can take out far more than its own value in helicopters. Similarly, no amount of SAM sites will beat a single tank. And so on.

It''s not as bad in C+C as it is in Red Alert. I believe it gets worse in Tiberian Sun although I swiftly forgot about that game, vacuous as it was.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

What the hell is wrong with you?

You think a general THROWS away his units in war because of some random variable he can't control? A general takes into account ALL aspects of war when he attacks.

You have 500 archers vs 500 infantry, you think that the infantry instantly when? When you throw in a huge hill the infantry has to climb, the archers become a much more viable option. But thats OLD school strategy.

Todays strategy is nothing like that, you don't sit and go "well there COULD be a house there... and there COULD be a brillaint leader and there COULD be that bullets miss when the soldiers shoot." A general wouldn't think like this. A general would know whats where, would know whos commanding his troops and would know the generic accuracy of those troops.

You can't say that having something thats easily determinable unfair because thats the whole point of strategy. In your case example, you didn't realize that the attacker COULD change his initial units at ANY time, and the whole point of strategy games are two things: Knowing what your enemy is doing and Knowing where your enemy is. The units are just mediums for those two things. Knowledge wins wars, having 4 extra Elven whatevers that can beat 8 Goblin whatevers doesn't matter. If the Goblin guy knows what the Elf had, he'll adjust his strategy to take out the Elven threat.

You see how that works? Knowledge is power, the units are a medium for that power.

[EDITED: You guys should check out Shogun: Total War, it has exactly what you want. It has morale, weather, hills, loyalty even. It's also a non-building strategy game, but rather a in-battle war game where battles are seperate from buildings. What you have is what you have when the attack comes, no going back now.]

Edited by - GroZZleR on February 10, 2002 9:50:42 PM

Actually I agree with you for the most part Grozzler, but there''s a couple things that I think you miseed.

True, a general may not know the exact make up of his opponents forces, but if he''s smart and uses scouts, he WILL know exactly what his enemy''s forces are. By and large, in real warfare, a commander will know roughly what his opponents forces are made up of, either through pre-war intelligence, from scouts, or from standard TO&E. Now if you are playing against aliens or in a fantasy setting, then my bets are off, because I''m talking about a realistic style of strategy game here.

Now, you say that a general won''t throw his units away because of a variable he can''t control. Ummm, generals can''t account for every variable. He may have a good iea, but he doesn''t know for sure, and that''s exactly my point, and I think yours as well. A commander has to guess at certain things. He will not know for certain that a puny little peon will destroy his tank. But with the way that the vast majority of strategy games...including Shogun....do this, is by implementing RPS.

The trick is as you said, knowledge. It''s eliminating as many of those variables as possible so that you do have a reasonably assured victory, but even here it''s not guaranteed. A leader may know what his enemy''s forces are made of entirely, but he will have a good idea, but he will NOT know how good its commanders are, the unit quality he is facing, or what their morale level is.

What you consider strategy...the unknown factor that player A doesn''t know what combination of units Player B is making....is such a tiny tiny factor of strategy, but it''s the major gameplay focus that strategy games focus on.

Hopefully within the next 3-4 months, I''ll have the tabletop rules to my game out, which I will use as a prototyping for the computer game. Hopefully everyone will see how I implement a non RPS and non-Capability balanced game which doesn''t stress the physical units so much as the 3C''s (Communication, Control, Command).

Well the only way to prevent your RPS method is to have every "faction" with the same units. How fun would that be?

Because you can''t have 1 unit that beats every unit, or else the game isn''t balanced. Even if that unit costs 10x more, it isn''t going to be balanced because that unit will have the advantage ONCE its built. So perhaps Faction A will be behind with resources, but they''ll be ahead with military. You can''t have a perfect balance without creating a RPS style-model.

And you''re right, the General CAN''T know how smart the commander is, but chances are if he''s commanding a band of 60 natives against a fully trained division of tanks, he''s not smart to be attacking those tanks to begin with =P

quote: Well the only way to prevent your RPS method is to have every "faction" with the same units.

I think what you mean is ''the only way to prevent inbalance when not using an RPS system IN CURRENT RTS GAMES is to give each faction the same units.

Note: ''in current RTS games''

I''m sure there are many ways of creating some form of balance (if indeed you have to) without the use of RPS.

Grozzler,





Here's a little example from real life that maybe will help illustrate my point. I remember as a young teen listening to my grandfather tell a story about what one of his friends had gone through while in a destoryer off the Battle off Samar. In this battle, which was a part of the Battle for Leyte Gulf, the Japanese had manuevered their powerful fleet and deceived the main portion of the American Fleet under Halsey.




In a nutshell, 6 light carriers and 6 destroyer escorts faced off against several Japanese cruisers, battleships and other heavier capital ships of the line. The American forces were seriously outgunned and outnumbered. But under the cover of darkness the Americans did not retreat. Instead they hammered away relentlessly. So relentlessly that my grandfather said his friend had run out of regular shells and were throwing starshells (illumination shells) at the enemy. Thanks to their incredible aggressiveness, excellent squadron coordination, fierce tenacity, and a mistake on the Japanese Admiral's part, the Americans won.



But they shouldn't have. The Japanese were just as good. Their commander was not any less dumb, and their ships were of comparable quality. If this were played by any strategy game today they would have lost. Perhaps the Japanese could have won eventually, but Kurita, the Admiral of the Japanese fleet, was worried that Halsey would return any second with the main fleet since they had been occupied so long. So after taking a good licking, he withdrew forces. In terms of casualties, the Americans gave better than they got AND they made the Japanese forces withdraw.



How many games offer this sort of chance of victory though? None that I can really think of. Not to brag since I know many grognards that can bury me to shame, but I think I know more about military history than 90% of the game designers here. I also probably know more about military science than anyone here that hasn't been in the military. The reason I point this out is that I look at things with a very critical eye, and I freely admit that my designs are much more geared for reality than what passes for RTS now. I think that War Colleges and serious wargaming grognards would probably be more interested in my game than your average RTS player. In fact, I think quite a large percentage of players weaned on RTS wouldn't understand my game and would probably get very frustrated.



But I think if you had a military commander look at my game, he'd very well understand that my "game" was more of a simulator than a game. That's probably why my ideas here are not very well understood since I'm approaching a strategy game almost from a simulation perspective


BTW, check out this site. Go to the typhoon Cobra link, and you'll read about the typhoon that hit the American fllet...where my grandfather won a Bronze Star for leading one of the remaining destroyer escorts that survived the storm to pick the survivors. Also more info on that battle. I'm a huge proponent of people to read about actual military battles so that they can get a better understanding of how battles really played out in the real world.

http://www.angelfire.com/fm/odyssey/leytegulf.htm





Edited by - Dauntless on February 11, 2002 3:25:40 PM

I wonder if Warrior Kings will answer some of the weaknesses that have been raised in this thread...

http://www.adrenalinevault.com/featured/wkings/index.asp?p=page2

That sounds pretty cool Tacit. Just about everything he mentions in his game is a serious concern of mine in current RTS''s. And I agree entirely about his one sentence statement on how his game is different than every other game out there.

I think too many people think of balancing as something inherent within the units themselves. In other words, sum the synergistic effects of your units capabilities, and voila....you have this magic number. Compare this magic number with the opposing forces magic number. Whomever is larger wins.

But designers don''t take into account formations (which I coin command and control), they don''t factor in variables like terrain or morale, and they don''t factor in leadership of any sort. In other words, there are external factors outside of the unit itself that determine how well it will do. when you have external factors that determine the capability of a unit, how do you "balance" it?

I think people also confuse balancing as meaning avoiding creating a unit that is unbeatable. While I can think of only one instance in the history of warfare that this has happened (the Atom bomb), I don''t think it should be precluded as a possibility if it is a way to win the war. If you create that simply can not be beaten, that is not a balancing issue, that is a game design issue. Even Superman has a vulnerability to Kryptonite. A designer that creates an unbeatable unit either just isn''t thinking, or should use it solely as a the game winning achievement, just as the A-bomb was in WWII.

Well, if you think that the A-Bomb needs some very specific and rare resources to be manufactured, then there''s your weakness.

I don''t really have an opinion on the whole R/P/S issue. Perhaps it was necessary to adopt this simplistic system because games couldn''t really factor in all those other elements you''ve mentioned, Dauntless. Now that it''s possible to consider formations, terrain, combined arms, etc., maybe the pure R/P/S model will begin to fade away...

Just a thought...

R.