The RTS unit creation paradigm

Dauntless · 2002-09-21T09:05:31

I think that a vast majority of RTS follow the following mold: 1. Start with zero units other than "harvesters" 2. Use harvesters to quickly build a military industrial complex 3. Manage economy while building army 4. While building army, deal with threats 5. Eliminate other side''s armed forces and/or defeat his military industrial complex. Admittedly this is a fairly gross simplification, but the vast majority fall under this role. And even the few that do not still generally do the following: *Create your Army on the fly while also dealing with strategy.* What if instead of creating an economy and in turn building an army, why not start with a pregenerated economy AND army? In essence, you design your military industrial complex on a certain geographic area, and then you also build your armed forces before the fighting even begins. One of the things that greatly bothers me about RTS''s today is the assumption that you have to build your armed forces from scratch and/or maintain an economy while doing so. Even the few games that get rid of economy management altogether still basically let you pick and chose your armed forces. what I''d like to see is a TRUE military organization. In other words, even if you have a "factory" that produces "tanks", you don''t just put in an order for 10 tanks and 20 infantry. In the real world, all armed forces have an organizational structure. At a certain level of hierarchy, you have a preset amount of ratios of troops and equipemtn that most countries term their TO&E (for Tables of Organization and Equipment). For example, let''s say that your country has a combined armed force like so: 4 Platoons to be comprised of: Per Platoon: 28 Riflemen 4 Squad Automatic Weapon gunners 2 Light Machine Guns 1 Combat Medic 1 Communications Operator Company Support Staff: 1 AT team 1 AA Team 1 Forward Observer Team 1 squad of 7 men for Mobile Head Quarters 1 attached MIFV platoon comprised of: 4 Armored Fighting Vehicles 1 attached organic artillery support (120mm mortar team) Okay, now suppose you send this company off fighting and you lose 2 of the AFV''s, and 30 of your rifleman, and both of your light machine gun crews. Now in most RTS games, each element of the company is something you can "order". So you''d tell your "Infantry Factory" to issue you 30 men, and your "Tank factory" to issue you 2 more AFV''s. But in RTS games, these items you ordered are fully functional and independent entities in and of themselves. THAT is what I find disturbing. While you COULD make an independent platoon out of the 30 men and attach it to the platoon what you really want to do is send them as replacement troops. In a nutshell, "factories" issue replacements, not independent entities capable of independent action. Factories only build building blocks for the actual fighting units you create. What this does in a gameplay sense is make the player more cautious with how he uses his units. You can merge independent units like a platoon to a damaged company, but that creates training issues, and if you send a bunch of FNG replacements into a damaged company, then you lower its morale and or quality. Also, it means that you have to have the logistics in place to send these replacements to the fighting units. I''m tired of seeing the "pizza ordering" style of RTS game play. I don''t want to see a factory build a unit, and then the player sends the unit on its merry way. It''s like a battlefield commander calling up a pizza delivery chain and saying..."ummm yeah, I''d like 10 infantry, and 2 AFV''s for delivery please". To me, it''s that cheesy (sorry for the pun ). It''s a model that tries to abstract and simplify the process of creating Units, but I think it''s TOO simplified and a better system can be made.

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Dauntless September 12, 2002 04:38 PM

44 comments, last by Dauntless 21 years, 7 months ago

MagicScript

290

September 13, 2002 07:30 PM

Personally, and I think other RTS players would agree, having any 'turns' of some sort will slow the game down and not make it as fun. I like the planning stage at the beginning, but why not be able to activate an overlay on top of the battlefield that will show incluence and range of enemy and friendly units during the real-time stage and allow further planing to take place at this time as well. Keep the prebattle planing, but allow the player to make major changes in his decision as well. Orders will not necessarily make it through to the combat units, but perhaps the player can help by sending a jeep with radio equipment or a man on horseback to a platoon if they've lost their equipment as a temporary measure.
I think everything should be adjustable, from what makes up a body of infanty to the actual formations they occupy (ie the player can create new formations.) Napolean was great because he revolutionized the bayonette charge and artilary bombardment defeating almost everyone because of this. But Wellington had tactically superior formations when fighting the French. These things ouch to have defaults so as not to confuse beginners, but still allowing advanced players the control that will really allow them to demonstrate their tactical and strategical abilities. Perhaps you could even allow the officers under the player's command to have personalities so the player could chose the ones who fit his playing style.

I'm just throwing some ideas out.

[edited by - MagicScript on September 13, 2002 8:32:13 PM]

Dauntless

314

Author

September 13, 2002 10:12 PM

MagicScript-
If I can get good enough AI routines then I will do away with the turn phase altogether, but I''m not sure if this is possible just yet. The reason I want turn based structures is to give time to implement orders. If AI was good enough, then all the player will have to do is set certain prebattle conditions...a sort of "standing orders" if you will and the AI commanders will then do their best to fulfill this. As real time progresses, if an AI commander does something silly or not what you''d like, you can issue new orders.

But again, this hinges on superb AI....but if it can be done, I''ll do it.

As for making everything adjustable, it introduces some pros and cons. The pros are the levels of tweakability you can do. This alone will make players play for hours on end just to experiment I think. The disadvantage is that the complexity will turn a lot of casual players off...even if there is a default setting, and thereis a possibility for two types of cheating.

The first kind is the obvious kind, a malicious player could insert his own scripts with functions into the game (I was thinking of having a scripting interface to allow for new 3d object models, but also for creating what would in essence be "orders macros"). The more insidious kind of cheating in my mind is the "rules lawyer". This is the sort of fellow who will pore over ther design docs, and minimax everything he can in order to create the ultimate unit or combination of units. Now for pregenerated scenarios, this isn''t too much of an issue, but in multiplayer, these kind of people are just @$$es. The best thing to do of course is just not play with them.

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

Sandman

2,211

September 16, 2002 05:09 PM

quote:Original post by Fuzztrek
I wasn''t talking about chess, and while you do have a point somewhere in your speech, it''s hard to find and isn''t really that good. Chess is a totally different type of game in a totally different genre. Say chess is like.. Warcraft. and checkers is like Age of Empires or command and conquers. Some would dissagree, but Warcraft is the champion. In the other games, you get cheap plastic items, whereas warcraft you get stone figures on a nicly finished wooden board. If you have a cheap version of chess, its like playing a custom game that someone made in warcraft''s world editor.

I''m quite impressed by the degree to which you managed to miss my point. I thought it was fairly obvious.

You claimed that the lack of a tech tree and limited units made a ''horrible'' RTS. I pointed out that chess has no tech tree, limited units, and although it is not played realtime (although I heard an RTS version exists) it has an incredible depth of strategy. The point is, tech trees, fancy races etc. are really only ''features''. They can add to a game, but they can never make the game. Chess is an exceptional strategy game without these things.

I think part of the problem is that you too readily associate the letters ''RTS'' with the standard peon pumping paradigm. As you say, Blizzard have got this down pretty damned well, so why bother trying to compete with them by spewing out a clone? Why not try a more radical take on the genre? Just because you aren''t used to it, doesn''t mean it is bad.

quote:
well, for one thing programmer''s suck at spelling as you can see from all of my posts. not saying that you need perfect spelling to create a game, but it definatly helps.

I''m assuming this was a joke.

quote:Programmers will always think of what can be done, instead of what should be done. designers have their drawbacks too, believe me. but programmers are generally also to pre-occupied with their code, so they can''t really be saying, half way through, "lets rewrite the engine so we can encorporate.. blah blha blah". Thats what the designers are suppost to do. This makes the programmers very mad at the designers. But if you think of it this way, it''s better to have all your programmers against the designers rather than having your programmers mad at your other programmers.

On the flip side, the designer programmer is more likely to come up with an acheivable project and deadline in the first place. Also, since the designer programmer can also code, he is better able to communicate his ideas to the technical staff. Personally I think the advantages of designer programmers far outweigh the disadvantages, and it would seem that various industry names (Earnest Adams, Warren Spector, Peter Molyneux to name only three) would agree.

Mr Saturn

122

September 16, 2002 07:21 PM

quote: The more insidious kind of cheating in my mind is the "rules lawyer". This is the sort of fellow who will pore over ther design docs, and minimax everything he can in order to create the ultimate unit or combination of units. Now for pregenerated scenarios, this isn''t too much of an issue, but in multiplayer, these kind of people are just @$$es. The best thing to do of course is just not play with them.

That is not cheating. It is more of a balance problem.

Fuzztrek

572

September 16, 2002 08:17 PM

I dunno. to me comparing a turn based game to a real time strategy game is like apples to oranges. Comparing a chunk of ice to a parakeet. Chess and warcraft are too completely different games... can you not see that? yes they are games. But i don''t walk up to you and say, football is better than your turn based strategy game. It''s not a valid argument at all. Also, you seem to be caught up in something that is totally scalar. You can divide something up forever. You could say, well, this piece of paper is the ENTIRE game. those x''s and o''s are just features, and i mean, common, that grid is total eye candy. I could just say, well the fact that you need to think about every move each turn is just a feature, without that it would still be the same game. without the alarm on the alarm clock, it''s still an alarm clock and just because it doesn''t have an alarm i fully expect it to wake me up in the morning with an annoying beep.

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MSW

151

September 17, 2002 02:07 AM

Chess as a RTS:

Instead of a 8 by 8 board...this will be playied on a 256 by 256 tiled board.

Each player starts with the usual alotment of pawns, knights, rooks, biships, queens and a king.

The game is over when one side takes the king...there is no check/check mate.

each piece has a point value:

pawn = 1
knight = 2
rook = 3
biship = 4
queen = 5
king = 6

and each piece starts with "speed = 1"...for each piece taken the individual piece will get it''s speed increased by 1

Player are to click on a piece...then click on where to move it (follows standard Chess movement rules)...only the piece will begin to move to the clicked location (by slideing or "jumping" if the knight)...once the piece is in motion it cannot change course until it arrives at it''s destination...essentualy moveing piece are out of the game until they arrive. the rate by which it moves is deturmined by the pieces speed rateing.

If another piece occupies the given tile then that piece is taken (provided that it is the enemy...if it''s of the same type then the traveling piece goes on a return voyage...for each piece taken the player recieves a point value (basied on list above) in addition to the speed value (take a rook with speed 3 then you get 6 points...3+3=6)

Each piece (except pawns) are able to spawn new pieces basied on one minus the point value of the piece doing the spawing...so

a knight can spawn a pawn

a rook can spawn a knight or a pawn

a biship can spawn a rook, knight, pawn

etc..

the cost for spawning depends on the point value

pawns cost 10
knights cost 20
rooks cost 30

etc..

only pieces that are not currently moveing may spawn other pieces...and when spawning the piece is unable to move for a number of seconds:

to spawn a pawn...the piece cannot be moved (or spawn another piece) for 10 seconds
a knight is 20...etc...

how does this sound?

My deviantART: http://msw.deviantart.com/

Sandman

2,211

September 17, 2002 05:10 AM

quote:Original post by Fuzztrek
I dunno. to me comparing a turn based game to a real time strategy game is like apples to oranges. Comparing a chunk of ice to a parakeet. Chess and warcraft are too completely different games... can you not see that? yes they are games. But i don''t walk up to you and say, football is better than your turn based strategy game.

I''m not saying one is better than the other. I am just trying to get across the idea that just as there are more than one ways to skin a cat, so are there more than one ways to make a real time strategy game. The whole pumping peons/advance tech/build units paradigm is only one of those ways.

Turn based strategy games like Chess don''t necessarily suffer from the lack of tech trees or anything like that, so why should real time games?

I imagine a ''bare bones'' RTS as follows: Two players, each begins the game with a selection of units, and each player has an objective to to complete, ideally one which will bring the two players into direct conflict. There is no army or base building, and no teching. If you can make an RTS fun at this basic level, then really everything else is just ''features''.

Fuzztrek

572

September 17, 2002 11:45 AM

Oh I agree there are many different ways to approch it.. It''s just that I don''t see very many other ways to do it that it would be successfull.. once again i must talk about warcraft. In warcraft, you can practically create any type of game you want using the very advanced world editor. While it doesn''t give you COMPLETE freedom, it does alow you to create very different "mini-games". And even if you can''t do everything in the world editor, you can crack or get cracks to allow you to do more. I just think that this gives you SO much more flexibility than something that has a fixed game play style or mode. However, I don''t really think that by giving the user two choices of game play style at startup is a good idea. Why? mainly because the quality control is most likely going to be lower than if you only have one game play style. At least if you leave it up to the users to create a different game play style with your tools, they can be the testers and they can fix ballance issues and stuff..

You said something about why make a copy of a game that is already completed? I am very inexperienced as a game programmer and much more so as a game designer. I figure that if I can even half-create a game close to one that is very successfull, I will have learned a great deal. It''s why they tell beginning game programmers to make breakout or a tetris clone. Mainly it''s something that works, and you learn a lot about sprite control and such stuff. So I mean, if you''re a game company and you''re looking to create a new game, I am not saying create a warcraft clone because it''s successfull and i think it will make you successfull to, i am saying that if you are learning, create the type of game that you really like.

Also, I don''t think that when you create a game you can be totally revolutionary. Well, I guess you can be but I think it''s gambling a lot. I think it''s better to introduce new concepts into old ideas. At least if those new concepts are successfull, you can migrate over to an entire game based on those concepts. Too me that would be the smartest way to do it. It''s kind of like, well, i''m not sure.. something that was introduced to the public but was rejected by them right away...

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Sandman

2,211

September 19, 2002 04:54 AM

quote:Original post by Fuzztrek
Oh I agree there are many different ways to approch it.. It''s just that I don''t see very many other ways to do it that it would be successfull..

Is that because there aren''t any, or because you lack imagination? For the sake of the gaming industry, I''d hope it is the latter.

quote:You said something about why make a copy of a game that is already completed? I am very inexperienced as a game programmer and much more so as a game designer. I figure that if I can even half-create a game close to one that is very successfull, I will have learned a great deal. It''s why they tell beginning game programmers to make breakout or a tetris clone. Mainly it''s something that works, and you learn a lot about sprite control and such stuff. So I mean, if you''re a game company and you''re looking to create a new game, I am not saying create a warcraft clone because it''s successfull and i think it will make you successfull to, i am saying that if you are learning, create the type of game that you really like.

Personally, when I think about game design, I try and think about it as though I was actually planning to sell the game. I really don''t see the point in trying to design something that has already been designed.

quote:
Also, I don''t think that when you create a game you can be totally revolutionary. Well, I guess you can be but I think it''s gambling a lot. I think it''s better to introduce new concepts into old ideas. At least if those new concepts are successfull, you can migrate over to an entire game based on those concepts. Too me that would be the smartest way to do it. It''s kind of like, well, i''m not sure.. something that was introduced to the public but was rejected by them right away...

I actually agree with you here. Too many radical ideas presented in an unfamiliar way will turn players off.

Fuzztrek

572

September 19, 2002 11:19 AM

Yes, i really think that there are many ways to approch the design of the game, and I can think of many ways. But I have not tested any of them, and until I actually have a bare-bones game engine, I am not going to try any of them. As like anything, at some point you have to follow a path. You start with something, add to it, take away from it, add some more, and you get something new. So I do think that you, should at least, follow in the footsteps of something else, something hopefully successful, and make it your own game. You agreed with me on my opinion of making games too-different, so you''ll probably agree with me on this. And if not.. this is getting very boring.

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The RTS unit creation paradigm

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