Doolwind-
I''m not a big fan of rocks/papers/scissors because I believe that it only partially models how units act against each other. Also, most units in the real world are not specifically designed to counter one other thing, which is in turn countered by another.
For example, armored vehicles are really designed to go against versions of themselves. Tanks are good against fighting tanks and lighter armored vehicles are meant to at least give a chance at knocking out main battle tanks, to fight other AFV''s or to provide cover for infantry. Infantry in turn is best at taking out other infantry, but will make mincemeat of armored vehicles (provided it has an AT team) without infantry support. Artillery is good against anything, but is also vulnerable to everything if it is found. Aircraft Carriers are like artillery, they can beat anything in, above or below the water, but is extremely vulnerable to anything that gets close enough to it. See what I mean? No one thing is best at beating something else, and in turn vulnerable to any one thing. Everything has a role, and is in turn supported by other things.
The reason that people think rocks papers scissors works well is that it makes codifying rules very easy. If Unit A meets Unit B, it will beat it. But it doesn''t factor the context of the situation into hand. Normally, if infantry without AT teams face armor units, it''s in deep doo-doo, but not if it is in the city or woods. Then it becomes a stalemate, because neither can defeat the other. And what good are tanks if the battlefield is mostly forest or jungle? Also, RPS doesn''t consider things like the quality of the unit, the morale, or fatigue. The more realistic the game becomes, the less RPS holds water because RPS is good at simplifying things. It also makes strategy much easier...."oh, he''s sending his archers up the hill to shoot down on my pikemen, I''ll just charge my light cavalry up his right flank to counter". This work well, until you realize that in real life, as the cavalry take damage from the archers, and lose momentum from going up hill, they may break and run. Of course, the opposite may happen too and the archers might panic that they are being charged.
That''s why I''m not a fan of RPS because in that situation, the cavalry will always win. It factored in neither the morale situation nor the disadvantage of being downhill (nor the fact that being the attacker is always more inherently dangerous than being the defender). Also, simplistic RPS systems do not factor in the quality or leadership of the unit. So what would happen if two units of equal capabilities faced each other in an RPS game? Is it the first one that shoots that beats the other?
However, as you pointed out, there are always trade offs. The trade off for realism is complexity...both on the part of the designers and the gamers themselves. The designers will have to codify the rules well, and document this to let the players know too. The players will now be confronted with more choices and things to consider. Some will see this as a disadvantage, others a boon. I personally want the more realistic system because it gives more things to think about when fighting other than what unit to use and how best to group them.
In my system the player must consider the following things in a fight:
1. What kind of unit is he facing against
2. What kinds of units does he have at his disposal?
3. What is the quality of his troops?
4. How good of a commander do the battle groups have?
5. What is the morale of his units?
6. What is the fatigue or ammo level like for his units?
7. What terrain will he be fighting in?
8. Can he manuever his forces to attack their flank or rear?
9. Are the units he is facing suppressed, panicking or routing?
10. Are his units in full *integrity?
11. Are the enemy units in full *integrity?
*integrity is defined as the cohesiveness of the unit...if the unit is disorganized from recent fighting, it is less effective
This is just a list off the top of my head, but are all very important factors and could mean the difference between victory or defeat. RPS style play really only factors in the first 2 things on my list and a few of the better ones do #3 and #5 or #7 or #9. I can not think of any current RTS game that factors in all of the elements in the above list though. The more factors that come into play, the deeper the gameplay, but also the steeper the learning curve. That is where RPS is nicer, because the learning curve is relatively simple, and it becomes the implementation that is the hard part. As a game gets more realistic, juggling all the factors becomes more diffucult and the implementation will be hard as well. But in my book, this is more challenging and interesting than RPS style play.
Victory conditions and game balance
Mechwarrior 4 handles the art problem very well. There are several basic models of mech which can be kitted out however the player likes. But, unlike previous Mechwarrior games, the design system in 4 would only allow certain types of weapons to be mounted in certain locations, in order to match the visual representation of the mech. So when the basic model of Mech had a missle rack on its shoulder, only missles could be mounted there. That still leaves a lot of room for individuality, as there are several missle systems available in that game. The great thing about this approach is that anyone can see from a distance that the unit has missiles, but only the owner knows what sort.
I think that a similar system could be developed to fit the kind of game we''ve been discussing.
I think that a similar system could be developed to fit the kind of game we''ve been discussing.
My biggest problem in trying to execute mixed-unit strategies in RTS is co-ordinating the units. I think this is another area where RTSs fail to achieve realism as in real life, a particular unit will have a commanding officer who can be given detailed information on aspects of the battle-plan and then left to execute those orders while his various supporting units also execute their assigned roles. In current RTSs (at least those I''ve seen) there is no way to set up something like "first wave of cavalry charge the enemy front ranks, then split and return while second wave charges, splits and returns" I suppose it might barely be possible to do using some sort of waypoint system, provided the enemy units don''t move at all, but even assigning the cavalry units to 6 groups (1st wave, second wave and the left and right halves of each wave for the split and return) and bookmarking key locations, you''d be working minor miracles of co-ordination to pull off even that sort of simple attack. In practice, if I devote all of my attention to a single force, I can make effective use of maybe 3 or 4 types of unit together, and even then it becomes mostly a matter of giving attack commands in the right order, rather than any fancy deployments like pincers. Unfortunately, while having my direct supervision can, roughly speaking, anything from double to increase by a factor of over 100 the lifespan and effectiveness of a group of units compared to an identical force given only broad commands (eg move to here on aggressive stance); any distraction (eg attack on the far side of the map) at best loses the benefits of my attention for the duration of the emergency, and at worst can drastically reduce the effectiveness of the group since their configuration at any moment will be based upon the assumption that I''ll continue paying attention until the current situation resolves. In practice, I tend to play using a large group of a given unit type for most purposes, and have at most one mixed group (actually fast-keyed as several groups) which gets most of my attention. For example, in Tiberian Sun (single player), I tend to have groups of 15 disk throwers, 2 rocket launcher infantry (whatever they''re called) and 3 medics, or similar composition, which proves to be effective against most encounters, particularly if they''re sent wide of the obvious approaches. For specific purposes, I may employ a group of up to 20 heavy tanks (or equivalent - it''s been a couple of years since I last played) which will just be sent to crush an enemy unit or units while I concentrate on other things.
I feel that until some form of "officer" - either AI or another player - capable of selecting between and performing pre-set maneuvers in response to situations is introduced, any attempt to encourage mixed-unit strategies will tend to fall to the far simpler strategy of the tank rush (barring excessive RPS "balancing") simply because the more complex strategies require too much parallel control. What I''d really like to see in RTS games is the option to delegate some authority to competent assistants. The major problem here being, of course, that in most cases, the AI needed to do this well simply isn''t available.
I feel that until some form of "officer" - either AI or another player - capable of selecting between and performing pre-set maneuvers in response to situations is introduced, any attempt to encourage mixed-unit strategies will tend to fall to the far simpler strategy of the tank rush (barring excessive RPS "balancing") simply because the more complex strategies require too much parallel control. What I''d really like to see in RTS games is the option to delegate some authority to competent assistants. The major problem here being, of course, that in most cases, the AI needed to do this well simply isn''t available.
rmsgrey -
you should talk to Dauntless then...I won''t try and paraphrase what I know of his game, but do a search (if you can) for some of his posts, his game is very similar to what you are hoping for.
Dauntless-
Thanks for the explanation, I was just meaning as far as current RTS games are going to RPS theory is working quite well, but I believe a realistic physics based approach would be a far better approach.
Doolwind
you should talk to Dauntless then...I won''t try and paraphrase what I know of his game, but do a search (if you can) for some of his posts, his game is very similar to what you are hoping for.
Dauntless-
Thanks for the explanation, I was just meaning as far as current RTS games are going to RPS theory is working quite well, but I believe a realistic physics based approach would be a far better approach.
Doolwind
Author
Doolwind-
Ahh, I reread your post and see what you meant now
Yeah, in that sense physics is its own form of RPS in that it has self-imposed checks and balances.
BTW, I''ve been busy studying more programming and I think I''ve got Vectors down, though the syntax of templates still confuses me. But I''m definitely going to be using some form of template for my unit containers. I''ve been slacking off a bit on studying vectors and spending time trying to figure out how to use wXwindows. It looks pretty cool, and I want to use it as a GUI interface to build the units and the containers. Gimme about a month, and hopefully I''ll post some preliminary code on my unit class, officer class and container class just as a start. I''m also going to codify the rules (but not even in pseudocode, just plain english so that others will get a better understanding of how the game works).
Ahh, I reread your post and see what you meant now
Yeah, in that sense physics is its own form of RPS in that it has self-imposed checks and balances.BTW, I''ve been busy studying more programming and I think I''ve got Vectors down, though the syntax of templates still confuses me. But I''m definitely going to be using some form of template for my unit containers. I''ve been slacking off a bit on studying vectors and spending time trying to figure out how to use wXwindows. It looks pretty cool, and I want to use it as a GUI interface to build the units and the containers. Gimme about a month, and hopefully I''ll post some preliminary code on my unit class, officer class and container class just as a start. I''m also going to codify the rules (but not even in pseudocode, just plain english so that others will get a better understanding of how the game works).
Author
rmsgrey-
Yeah, definitely check out my previous threads. I''ve been trying to espouse the idea of having officer objects that actually do the controlling of your units. It requires several different concepts to work though:
Well, that''s it in a nutshell. But the reason I want this kind of system is because I believe it allows a different kind of play balance. Instead of just factoring in what kind of unit is best to fight another unit, you have to factor in how well organized your forces are. Oft times in history the more disciplined and organized force has defeated a numerically or qualitatively superior force. Realizing how to optimize your forces potential requires far more skill and forethought than just dragging a box around several units, hitting the CTRL1 key, and then telling it what to do.
Yeah, definitely check out my previous threads. I''ve been trying to espouse the idea of having officer objects that actually do the controlling of your units. It requires several different concepts to work though:
- A base unit class. These objects themselves are only building blocks that make up...
- Cluster class. This class is a combination of base units. It is commanded directly by....
- Commander class. This class takes orders from the player OR from superior commanders above them. This means that there needs to be a...
- Military Organization. The organization is composed of Clusters that are in turn grouped into...
- Battle Groups. The battle groups are commanded in turn by Commander objects. This lets the player control either small clusters, or groups of clusters through...
- Orders. Orders are issued by the player in two ways, through standing (passive) orders, and direct commands. Orders will be broken into defined behaviors which can be modified by conditional logic (for example, IF attacked, MOVE to cover). Order can be passed from the player directly to an officer, or filtered from superior commanders to subordinate commanders. Orders are passed via....
- Tokens. Tokens are wrappers for the order object and represent the physical transmission of the data. If the data needs to be delivered across a distance these tokens can be jammed, lost or tampered with. Also, units under stealth must break radio silence to receive new orders.
Well, that''s it in a nutshell. But the reason I want this kind of system is because I believe it allows a different kind of play balance. Instead of just factoring in what kind of unit is best to fight another unit, you have to factor in how well organized your forces are. Oft times in history the more disciplined and organized force has defeated a numerically or qualitatively superior force. Realizing how to optimize your forces potential requires far more skill and forethought than just dragging a box around several units, hitting the CTRL1 key, and then telling it what to do.
quote:Original post by Dauntless
Yeah, definitely check out my previous threads.
Will do. Meanwhile, something I don''t know if anyone''s suggested yet is that having officer positions opens up multiplayer possibilities - In addition to having a commander in chief, you can have players taking on the role of sargeants or lieutenants and directly controlling small groups. Of course, you''d probably want to have an AI available to fill in, and you may want to offer some sort of control over who gets to command your forces in order to block grief players (and incompetents) On the other hand, in RL, the lower echelons of the command structure are generally not hand-picked by the top brass anyway.
Wow, this thread is a bit overwhelming. Great stuff. Dauntless, yoiu and I come from the same school - I started playing board wargames at a very young age (I still have them all, probably 30, and still buy from companies like Clash of Arms). I started playing computer games because of the wargames, especially since it was so hard to find real life opponents.
I can''t offer much on technical aspects of game design, but maybe I can contribute on the military, game player side. So many comments . . . I will try to be brief.
Dauntless, your biggest obstacel appears to be, from an outside observation, in creating an environment where victory may not be obvious at first. What we see now as victories in battle we did not know would be victory at the time. Rev. war example - we couldn''t have known that when Greene split off Morgan in the Southern campaign, that Greene would be able to stomp Tarleton.
Bottom line, amorphous victory conditions might better be achieved by tying them to longer term "political" objectives not necessarily prevelant in decisionmaking process at the tactical, or even operational level. E.g. Trenton and Princeton were tremendous moral builders. This led to rejuvenated interest in the war effort at the national level, better predisposition by locals in helping the army, higher recruitment, greater confidence in Washington, more caution on the part of British commanders, etc. Writing all of these various factors into a game might be hard to do, but making them "ensue" (yes I know thats ambiguous) might not. For example, in the Close Combat series each squad, and in some cases each man, has individual characteristics that act INDEPENDENTLY of other elements. For me I get satisfaction through "doing it right" - i.e. I lay down covering fire, deploy smoke for a dash through the open, while my forces run for cover to the next building, if things get hairy I call in mortar fire. The result in an abstract is a player making a series of decisions which in combination lead to satisfaction (not getting First Sgt. Scully, who I''ve earned three silver stars, killed) and in some cases winning the battle. Not always though, sometimes I am so cautious with my ment and tanks that I wont run them into a killing zone just get that extra victory location - the battle then ends as a draw.
There is the occasional random factor which sometimes is, and sometimes isn''t sponsored by the game. German Tanks were not particularly that much better than American tanks. They constantly broke down, many of them did not have hydrolic or electric turrets (thus had to be hand cranked) and later in the war suffered from lack of ball bearings (in a side note on trivia, during Saving Private Ryan you can hear the German tanks coming long before they arrive, this "whining" was caused by the grinding of parts because their tanks were chronically short of ball bearings). They were also not fast AT ALL, had poor traction, high fuel consumption and in some cases suffered from a lack of secondary armaments (you remember the first tiger and what happened at Kursk, right?). Well, these disadvanteges were exploited in many ways - P-51s used to shoot at the ground right in front of German tanks because the 50 calibre bullets could not penetrate hull down, but they could penetrate the underbelly as the bullets ricocheted upwards off the ground. How you might be able to keep people from becoming rules lawyers, an experience you and I both obviously shared from board games, is by writing those random events into the game system and making them not visible to the player. The Physics, as I think one poster suggested. You will pull your hair out if you try to right all of these tiny little various factors into a game system by yourself, but starting with real world physics will help you ground certain things and build realism - which IS a desire of WARgamers like you and I- without having to justify everything to the eventually very picky gamer. One example of how this was incorporated was in one of my all time favorite computer wargames, Iron Cross, by New World Media. My M18 Hellcats were much faster than the German tanks (as in real life) so I would simply run circles around the German tanks (keeping them commited to a different target) and cap them from the side or rear where the gun of the M18 could penetrate. It worked about 75% of the time.
Onward . . . an example of that random event in a tactical level situation that can be sponsored by the game, and which occasionally did happen but will be annoying to the player, is where a single German landwehr charges across an open field into the face of AB squad small arms killing zone, enters the building, engages in and kills every single member of hte Airborne squad in hand to hand combat. You get the picture.
Efficiency. Someone mentioned that players will concentrate too much on development of units and squeeze out every ounce of resources to create an uber unit, or something to that effect. Well, I agree, and the reason I think they do it is because ITS FUN AS HELL!! :-) Thats right, I think that is an element of the strategy play, versus the tactical level combat play, that is so fun. You all are right that it is so abused, however. For instance, I positively love Cossacks - but don''t play it on line anymore because of spammers. PLayers that have figured out how to manipulate the production mechanics and send giant blobs of "officer package" armies at me. I, being a player interested in the environment of the game (18th century linear warfare) an not an RTSer focused on win by any means, slowly build a combined arms army and form into units. I have designed more than a few tactics to whip the less experiences spammers (deploying six separate cavalry columns out in front of my army, "clumping" their command together so that they all highlight and respond to the click of one key set by a group grab and click function, and then as soon as he charges with the cavalry blob I withraw mine behind my infantry squares). My victories are massive, and my kill ration is always 7 or 8 to one, but I only "win" 30% of the time. So despite all the work I put into building up my units (players can concentrate on four characteristic elements for unit "improvements"), I lose the battle by the GAME''s defined victory conditions. The one missing element in this system? Army moral. Armies would break and flee long before they suffered 100% casualties - you know, unit cohesion would disintigrate from losses, etc.
Victory conditions will necessarily be related to scale, won''t they? Numerous tactical victories will lead to an operational advantage, an operational advantage could lead to a strategic victory. Then, depending on the scale of the game, benefits could ensue (higher national moral, higher recruitment). Loss would yield results as well (your army becomes extremely battle hardened, and harder to beat on the next engagement, change of government, change in tactics or strategy). Writing these into an AI would be difficult and time consuming I presume, but it could be done. I think it could be done by using a "sprite" type environment as was done with Close Combat and Iron Cross. At a tactical level AB units have high morale (will defend longer), professionalism (would know how to flank a ridge) and would act accordingly. At the operational level that AB division would "more than likely" overcome a less experienced opposing division. Two elite tank units facing each other are going to wipe each other out (yeilding a loss of valuable STRATEGIC level assets for both players, I would attrit my opponent). Write in certain elements to the game because for wargamers like you and I the benefit of computers is the AI being able to manage all those elements which sacrifice playability in a board game like Terrible Swift Sword, Air Force, Fortress Europa, or Leopard II.
Wedding the long term geo-political benefits at the appropriate level for the game will be Key. A great example for a boardgame is Australian Design Group''s World In Flames series. You allocate your production, get your junk 6 turns later (kind of like trying to predict the market by wondering if your game will be popular in 6 months!) and then deploy it on an operational level. Gamers like me LOVE LONG TERM REWARDS.
Different games for different audiences. You and I are Wargamers first, I believe. So it does not surprise me that some would question your focus on realism. Its a choice you will have to make by choosing which audience to target. Of course, you could adjust the mainstream appeal with options perhaps. Kind of like being able to turn off "realism" in Medal Of Honor (which I never do, and I always play only objectives maps).
Zoomboy is right, terrain is underutilized.
Summary of suggestions.
Rules lawyers (I became an Attorney, but hate arguing over game rules because for me the object is realism, something text based rules were imperfect at describing). Write certain things into the game. Physics is best place, because the laws are already defined - an M16 can shoot 450 yards, a 105 cannon will penetrate 8" of steel, etc.
Some gamers enjoy long term rewards and plotting every efficiency detail. THey enjoy the playing as much as the end result.
Wed appropriate external victory conditions with the scale (you probably know this).
Create a sprite with as many behaviors as possible and then let it operate on its own with only general instructions rendered by the player.
Sorry for such a long rambling post but I love games, and I think all you guys are great for enriching my life with these games. I hope the perspective from a gamer and lover of military history helps give you a peek into what may work in terms of interest. THese are only suggestions and I hope they help.
I can''t offer much on technical aspects of game design, but maybe I can contribute on the military, game player side. So many comments . . . I will try to be brief.
Dauntless, your biggest obstacel appears to be, from an outside observation, in creating an environment where victory may not be obvious at first. What we see now as victories in battle we did not know would be victory at the time. Rev. war example - we couldn''t have known that when Greene split off Morgan in the Southern campaign, that Greene would be able to stomp Tarleton.
Bottom line, amorphous victory conditions might better be achieved by tying them to longer term "political" objectives not necessarily prevelant in decisionmaking process at the tactical, or even operational level. E.g. Trenton and Princeton were tremendous moral builders. This led to rejuvenated interest in the war effort at the national level, better predisposition by locals in helping the army, higher recruitment, greater confidence in Washington, more caution on the part of British commanders, etc. Writing all of these various factors into a game might be hard to do, but making them "ensue" (yes I know thats ambiguous) might not. For example, in the Close Combat series each squad, and in some cases each man, has individual characteristics that act INDEPENDENTLY of other elements. For me I get satisfaction through "doing it right" - i.e. I lay down covering fire, deploy smoke for a dash through the open, while my forces run for cover to the next building, if things get hairy I call in mortar fire. The result in an abstract is a player making a series of decisions which in combination lead to satisfaction (not getting First Sgt. Scully, who I''ve earned three silver stars, killed) and in some cases winning the battle. Not always though, sometimes I am so cautious with my ment and tanks that I wont run them into a killing zone just get that extra victory location - the battle then ends as a draw.
There is the occasional random factor which sometimes is, and sometimes isn''t sponsored by the game. German Tanks were not particularly that much better than American tanks. They constantly broke down, many of them did not have hydrolic or electric turrets (thus had to be hand cranked) and later in the war suffered from lack of ball bearings (in a side note on trivia, during Saving Private Ryan you can hear the German tanks coming long before they arrive, this "whining" was caused by the grinding of parts because their tanks were chronically short of ball bearings). They were also not fast AT ALL, had poor traction, high fuel consumption and in some cases suffered from a lack of secondary armaments (you remember the first tiger and what happened at Kursk, right?). Well, these disadvanteges were exploited in many ways - P-51s used to shoot at the ground right in front of German tanks because the 50 calibre bullets could not penetrate hull down, but they could penetrate the underbelly as the bullets ricocheted upwards off the ground. How you might be able to keep people from becoming rules lawyers, an experience you and I both obviously shared from board games, is by writing those random events into the game system and making them not visible to the player. The Physics, as I think one poster suggested. You will pull your hair out if you try to right all of these tiny little various factors into a game system by yourself, but starting with real world physics will help you ground certain things and build realism - which IS a desire of WARgamers like you and I- without having to justify everything to the eventually very picky gamer. One example of how this was incorporated was in one of my all time favorite computer wargames, Iron Cross, by New World Media. My M18 Hellcats were much faster than the German tanks (as in real life) so I would simply run circles around the German tanks (keeping them commited to a different target) and cap them from the side or rear where the gun of the M18 could penetrate. It worked about 75% of the time.
Onward . . . an example of that random event in a tactical level situation that can be sponsored by the game, and which occasionally did happen but will be annoying to the player, is where a single German landwehr charges across an open field into the face of AB squad small arms killing zone, enters the building, engages in and kills every single member of hte Airborne squad in hand to hand combat. You get the picture.
Efficiency. Someone mentioned that players will concentrate too much on development of units and squeeze out every ounce of resources to create an uber unit, or something to that effect. Well, I agree, and the reason I think they do it is because ITS FUN AS HELL!! :-) Thats right, I think that is an element of the strategy play, versus the tactical level combat play, that is so fun. You all are right that it is so abused, however. For instance, I positively love Cossacks - but don''t play it on line anymore because of spammers. PLayers that have figured out how to manipulate the production mechanics and send giant blobs of "officer package" armies at me. I, being a player interested in the environment of the game (18th century linear warfare) an not an RTSer focused on win by any means, slowly build a combined arms army and form into units. I have designed more than a few tactics to whip the less experiences spammers (deploying six separate cavalry columns out in front of my army, "clumping" their command together so that they all highlight and respond to the click of one key set by a group grab and click function, and then as soon as he charges with the cavalry blob I withraw mine behind my infantry squares). My victories are massive, and my kill ration is always 7 or 8 to one, but I only "win" 30% of the time. So despite all the work I put into building up my units (players can concentrate on four characteristic elements for unit "improvements"), I lose the battle by the GAME''s defined victory conditions. The one missing element in this system? Army moral. Armies would break and flee long before they suffered 100% casualties - you know, unit cohesion would disintigrate from losses, etc.
Victory conditions will necessarily be related to scale, won''t they? Numerous tactical victories will lead to an operational advantage, an operational advantage could lead to a strategic victory. Then, depending on the scale of the game, benefits could ensue (higher national moral, higher recruitment). Loss would yield results as well (your army becomes extremely battle hardened, and harder to beat on the next engagement, change of government, change in tactics or strategy). Writing these into an AI would be difficult and time consuming I presume, but it could be done. I think it could be done by using a "sprite" type environment as was done with Close Combat and Iron Cross. At a tactical level AB units have high morale (will defend longer), professionalism (would know how to flank a ridge) and would act accordingly. At the operational level that AB division would "more than likely" overcome a less experienced opposing division. Two elite tank units facing each other are going to wipe each other out (yeilding a loss of valuable STRATEGIC level assets for both players, I would attrit my opponent). Write in certain elements to the game because for wargamers like you and I the benefit of computers is the AI being able to manage all those elements which sacrifice playability in a board game like Terrible Swift Sword, Air Force, Fortress Europa, or Leopard II.
Wedding the long term geo-political benefits at the appropriate level for the game will be Key. A great example for a boardgame is Australian Design Group''s World In Flames series. You allocate your production, get your junk 6 turns later (kind of like trying to predict the market by wondering if your game will be popular in 6 months!) and then deploy it on an operational level. Gamers like me LOVE LONG TERM REWARDS.
Different games for different audiences. You and I are Wargamers first, I believe. So it does not surprise me that some would question your focus on realism. Its a choice you will have to make by choosing which audience to target. Of course, you could adjust the mainstream appeal with options perhaps. Kind of like being able to turn off "realism" in Medal Of Honor (which I never do, and I always play only objectives maps).
Zoomboy is right, terrain is underutilized.
Summary of suggestions.
Rules lawyers (I became an Attorney, but hate arguing over game rules because for me the object is realism, something text based rules were imperfect at describing). Write certain things into the game. Physics is best place, because the laws are already defined - an M16 can shoot 450 yards, a 105 cannon will penetrate 8" of steel, etc.
Some gamers enjoy long term rewards and plotting every efficiency detail. THey enjoy the playing as much as the end result.
Wed appropriate external victory conditions with the scale (you probably know this).
Create a sprite with as many behaviors as possible and then let it operate on its own with only general instructions rendered by the player.
Sorry for such a long rambling post but I love games, and I think all you guys are great for enriching my life with these games. I hope the perspective from a gamer and lover of military history helps give you a peek into what may work in terms of interest. THese are only suggestions and I hope they help.
Author
quote:Original post by Adam Hill
Dauntless, your biggest obstacel appears to be, from an outside observation, in creating an environment where victory may not be obvious at first. What we see now as victories in battle we did not know would be victory at the time.
Indeed. That's the trick though. Sometimes it is only through hindsight that the outcome of a battle's importance would truly be revealed. Sometimes victory conditions are amorphous and change upon the victories and losses of both sides. The impressive U-boat victories in the Atlantic only spurred the creation of Radar and Sonar, and in a way, Germany's own impressive victories went to far, leading to its own ultimate demise.
quote:Original post by Adam Hill
Bottom line, amorphous victory conditions might better be achieved by tying them to longer term "political" objectives not necessarily prevelant in decisionmaking process at the tactical, or even operational level.
Agreed, but easier said than done. As you said, often it is the morale of not just the soldiers, but the people back home that matter more. I believe that if Lee and the Army of northern Virginia could have achieved one rout of the Army of the Potomac during 1864, the south would have won. Why? Because the Northern people were beginning to hate Lincoln and Grant. Lincoln primarily won because of Union victories at Vicksburg, which turned the Democartic's party idea of suing for peace seem premature. I'm not sure how to handle something like that game-wise though, but if it could be implemented it would be very interesting in trying to keep the populace supporting your war efforts.
quote:Original post by Adam Hill
There is the occasional random factor which sometimes is, and sometimes isn't sponsored by the game. German Tanks were not particularly that much better than American tanks. They constantly broke down, many of them did not have hydrolic or electric turrets (thus had to be hand cranked) and later in the war suffered from lack of ball bearings (in a side note on trivia, during Saving Private Ryan you can hear the German tanks coming long before they arrive, this "whining" was caused by the grinding of parts because their tanks were chronically short of ball bearings). They were also not fast AT ALL, had poor traction, high fuel consumption and in some cases suffered from a lack of secondary armaments (you remember the first tiger and what happened at Kursk, right?).
German tanks if they were inferior were mostly due to the fact that the Germans played around with too many designs too quickly. They never really took the time to work out the problems of a previous model before they were off designing another. And Hitler's maniacal intrusions into designer's territory (like building 200 ton tanks, and 100,000 ton battleships) only encouraged whimsical designs. I think this illustrates a point that there's more to a vehicle than its offensive power and its defensive capabilities (where the Germans usually excelled). Fuel, weapon's stability (did it jam alot?), aiming capability (if memory serves correctly, didn't the Germans develop the first gyrostabilized turret?) and others compliment a design. Sometimes as much as speed, firepower and armor.
quote:Original post by Adam Hill
The Physics, as I think one poster suggested. You will pull your hair out if you try to right all of these tiny little various factors into a game system by yourself, but starting with real world physics will help you ground certain things and build realism - which IS a desire of WARgamers like you and I- without having to justify everything to the eventually very picky gamer.
Definitely. Even though I like realism, games are about modeling reality. There's an old Steve Wright joke that says he has a map of the United states...the scale is 1:1. Eventually there are tradeoffs, but the key is modelling the essence of what you try to model and the factors that influence them. If RTS gamers believe they are playing out simulations of war, then I think they should pick up some good board games to get a feel of what warfare is more like.
quote:Original post by Adam Hill
Efficiency. Someone mentioned that players will concentrate too much on development of units and squeeze out every ounce of resources to create an uber unit, or something to that effect. Well, I agree, and the reason I think they do it is because ITS FUN AS HELL!! :-)
Yes it is, and I think is why games like Car Wars and Battletech are still so fun today
As the saying goes, "god is in the details", and while strategy is about the big picture, you have to understand the cogs before you know what the wheel is doing.quote:Original post by Adam Hill
I, being a player interested in the environment of the game (18th century linear warfare) an not an RTSer focused on win by any means, slowly build a combined arms army and form into units. I have designed more than a few tactics to whip the less experiences spammers (deploying six separate cavalry columns out in front of my army, "clumping" their command together so that they all highlight and respond to the click of one key set by a group grab and click function, and then as soon as he charges with the cavalry blob I withraw mine behind my infantry squares).
My favorite cavalry units were always lancers...to deal with other cavalry units. I actually remember playing the Scotts Grey's once, and getting reamed out (like in real life) by the Polish Royal Lancers at Waterloo. The problem is that most people like the simplicity of "peon pumping", just create mass hordes and send them out. The trouble is that in the real world, this almost never works (ask Iran, China, the Zulu's or Beduoin tribes). But RTS games lack the game rules that make such strategies ineffective.
quote:Original post by Adam Hill
My victories are massive, and my kill ration is always 7 or 8 to one, but I only "win" 30% of the time. So despite all the work I put into building up my units (players can concentrate on four characteristic elements for unit "improvements"), I lose the battle by the GAME's defined victory conditions. The one missing element in this system? Army moral. Armies would break and flee long before they suffered 100% casualties - you know, unit cohesion would disintigrate from losses, etc.
There's an old adage that it's far easier to break a man's will than his body. Again, RTS games are too simplistic to factor these rules, and hence the experience seems hollow. As you said, teh game's victory conditions basically alter what strategies are and aren't effective. For people like us interested in realism and added game depth, these options are lost. Some will say this doesn't make RTS games any less fun, just different, and they are right. But I think that the more choices the better, because it makes the game deeer and more rich.
quote:Original post by Adam Hill
Victory conditions will necessarily be related to scale, won't they? Numerous tactical victories will lead to an operational advantage, an operational advantage could lead to a strategic victory. Then, depending on the scale of the game, benefits could ensue (higher national moral, higher recruitment). Loss would yield results as well (your army becomes extremely battle hardened, and harder to beat on the next engagement, change of government, change in tactics or strategy). Writing these into an AI would be difficult and time consuming I presume, but it could be done.
I'm not sure about that. While in most cases that's true, how do you explain wars in which the winner of the war lost the majority of the battles? Some of it goes back to the political realities of war. But you are right that victories enhance the fighting abilities of the victor, and even in loss, it can affect the experience of the loser (though their morale MAY suffer). But history has shown that sometimes the side that starts to lose fights even more aggressively. So it's hard to say really.
quote:Original post by Adam Hill
Wedding the long term geo-political benefits at the appropriate level for the game will be Key. A great example for a boardgame is Australian Design Group's World In Flames series. You allocate your production, get your junk 6 turns later (kind of like trying to predict the market by wondering if your game will be popular in 6 months!) and then deploy it on an operational level. Gamers like me LOVE LONG TERM REWARDS.
Never heard of the game but I definitely agree. I think the time scale in RTS games are all wrong. While it's true that there's a queue time to build units, I think it's sort of silly that you have this "on demand" system to build units. Like you said, building an army is a lot like forecasting events. You don't simply call up the factories and order a dozen more tanks and voila. Making the player think about what might happen in the future and compensating for it is not only more realistic, but I think makes for far more interesting game play.
quote:Original post by Adam Hill
Different games for different audiences. You and I are Wargamers first, I believe. So it does not surprise me that some would question your focus on realism. Its a choice you will have to make by choosing which audience to target.
I definitely think my game will only be appreciated by those more into realistic style wargames. Indeed, I don't game my game a game, but more like a warfare simulator. I also want to create a game like this simply because there aren't many out there now (although take at anything made by www.battlefront.com for some excellent wargames).
[edited by - dauntless on December 8, 2002 4:08:40 PM]
quote:Original post by Dauntless
Doolwind-
BTW, I''ve been busy studying more programming and I think I''ve got Vectors down, though the syntax of templates still confuses me. But I''m definitely going to be using some form of template for my unit containers. I''ve been slacking off a bit on studying vectors and spending time trying to figure out how to use wXwindows. It looks pretty cool, and I want to use it as a GUI interface to build the units and the containers.....
Sounds good Dauntless, what is wXwindows?? I have never heard of it! I was wondering about GUI''s in D3D a while ago and I am sticking with sprites, nice and simple
.That would be cool if you could stick up your officer classes, I have been intrigued as to how you were going to create them. At the moment I am sticking with a simpler RTS as I have to hand in a port folio to get a scholership into the games course I am applying for next year. Also, I have only two weeks of work left so I''ll be able to get a bit more active on the forums and on working towards my current RTS. When were you planning on working on some simple code (psuedo or not) for game or just the officer stuff??
Doolwind
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