Realistic RTS's anyone?
Some good ideas sandman but I think the building coming out of no were is not a good one. I think all you are too involved in realism and less in gameplay. I personally think that people like to build building in rts games (isn''t that one of the big parts of the strategy?) but thats just me.
Author
quote:
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Original post by Sandman
Buildings
....will be built automatically. Cities, buildings etc. will spring up where it makes sense for them to do so. Of course, as king, you have the power to found a city or order the construction of a building wherever and whenever you want, but this will cost more.....
Edited by - Sandman on February 12, 2001 5:59:15 PM
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No way.
why not? if you were a king, would you really want to bother yourself with commissioning every single timber house, blacksmith etc...? No, you leave that to the peons.
you would have to commission big things like castles, but most of the rest would be taken care of for you, leaving you to concentrate on important things (like strategy)
Edited by - Sandman on February 13, 2001 8:23:19 AM
What I meant was that people would build houses independently for themselves, but if they were in the middle class (craftsmen, merchants) or lords and had the money to build more important structures than they would ask your permission first. Lords would build most structures in their land without asking your permission.
"A man with no head is not very useful"
Edited by - SatanAngel on February 14, 2001 5:43:23 AM
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Original post by Sandman
Buildings
....will be built automatically. Cities, buildings etc. will spring up where it makes sense for them to do so. Of course, as king, you have the power to found a city or order the construction of a building wherever and whenever you want, but this will cost more.....
Edited by - Sandman on February 12, 2001 5:59:15 PM
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No way.
why not? if you were a king, would you really want to bother yourself with commissioning every single timber house, blacksmith etc...? No, you leave that to the peons.
you would have to commission big things like castles, but most of the rest would be taken care of for you, leaving you to concentrate on important things (like strategy)Edited by - Sandman on February 13, 2001 8:23:19 AM
What I meant was that people would build houses independently for themselves, but if they were in the middle class (craftsmen, merchants) or lords and had the money to build more important structures than they would ask your permission first. Lords would build most structures in their land without asking your permission.
"A man with no head is not very useful"
Edited by - SatanAngel on February 14, 2001 5:43:23 AM
WARNING: Long reply coming up....
Hoside:
You are right. What you build is a big part of the strategy - probably the biggest in the vast majority of RTS's currently available. Which IMHO sucks. If I want to build stuff, I'll play sim city. I think that in order to qualify for the 'S' in RTS, good military tactics should win the battle. Yet in most RTS's the battle is won by people who memorise a perfect build order. You can be the greatest military tactician on the planet, if you havent learnt the correct order to build your buildings you will lose to Mr Tank Rush Boy who has a copy of the Unofficial Red Alert guide and learnt the correct build order by heart. This is one of the reasons I hate RA and most of the other RTS's that are out there - in my opinion they arent strategy games, they are just resource management games, and simple ones at that. Red alert is just a simplified version of The Settlers.
By getting rid of that aspect of RTS's I hope that the players will be able to concentrate on proper tactics, rather than waste their time on resource management.
Wav:
Thanks. Its nice to know that someone is on my wavelength. (and when that $2m turns up, give me a shout
)
You kinda hit the nail on the head there - thats exactly the sort of thing I am aiming for. Each terrain region would have different resources, but very few (if any) would have all the resources needed to support any sizable population. Hence the need for supply lines between regions. Of course, we dont want to bother the player with these too much, (ie the AI takes care of them automatically - at least most of the time) but they will play a part in the overall strategy, since they will need to be protected. Hence you get emergent complexity, with certain regions which, on their own, are completely useless, but become tactically invaluable because your enemies supply lines might depend on them.
I am glad someone likes that idea
I was thinking that trade cities, mining towns etc. would spring up wherever they were appropriate. Every city would probably have a blacksmith etc. eventually, regardless of whether you commission them or not. Rather than design specific templates, (I want to avoid as much abstraction in the interface as possible) I though that you could vary the style of the city by subsidising/commissioning certain building types from your own coffers. So if you want a military city, you commission a barracks early in the cities' development and put extra money into recruitment. Left to its own devices, I would like the town to develop in a sensible way eg. towns on the border with your enemy would become well protected, towns with lots of supply lines running through them will be trade towns etc. This might seem a lot of work to do something that the player has no control over, but I think it would be worth it - the player will have an interesting map to fight over, with political and economic boundaries, without having to worry about micromanagement. I also think that it will draw the player into the game world more, without being overwhelming, in a way that very few RTS's seem to manage.
Yes, these units would be very powerful, but they would be as rare as hens teeth. In a conventional RTS, units like this would be bad, since they would (very likely) dominate lesser units. (Reason - while they may be more expensive to build, they are easier to control (because you have less of them) and therefore a more desirable choice than millions of weaker units (a nightmare to coordinate) and generally more effective) However, since the player doesnt have too much control over the exact units that make up his army (he can spend money on particular troop types to promote them, but ultimately it will be impossible to have an army consisting entirely of these elite units - at most they might make up 5% of your total force). Hence these units will be interesting, but never dominate the battlefield. You may end up with some cool fights though, with just a handful of your elite guard defending a castle from a massed opponent. The fact that they don't dominate the battlefield doesnt stop them from being decisive when used properly...
Space based RTS's. Thats a tough one. The trouble with space is that it is big and empty - you need to find some way of introducing interesting tactics without relying on terrain (because there isnt any). There is no real-life precedent either, so space tactics is a completely new field. Also, realism will (to a large extent) have to go out of the window - starships obeying proper newtonian physics in an RTS might be an interesting challenge, but I suspect that most people would find it too difficult to control.
Here are a few ideas, but bear in mind these arent too well thought out.....
Manoueverability: Ships arent perfectly manoueverable, they cant all stop dead from full speed and they cant turn on a penny. This is particularly important for capital ships - while they may have 360 degree fire coverage, their primary weapons will have limited fire arcs to the front - and it will take a long time to change the direction the ship is pointing in. Hence positioning these things carefully may form part of a successful strategy.
Damage: I am sorry, but a capital ship three miles long isnt going to blow up because a few fighters shot it with laser guns. These things should be rather like the castles in the medieval RTS, and they will require special means of dealing with them. Super powerful weapons alone won't necessarily destroy the ship, maybe just damage it enought that a boarding party can get inside and completely disable it. Of course, such ships will have large numbers of marines aboard - the aim of the super guns might be to blow out the habitable parts of the ship in order to kill as many of the crew as possible, so that a boarding action might succeed, rather than go for the heavily armoured crtical sections like the main reactor. On the subject of which, a ship 3 miles long would probably have more than one reactor - taking one out would only damage part of the ship and only disable it partially.
Fighters: If a lowly fighter cant damage a capital ship, what is the point of it? Why not just have loads of capital ships? There are a fewof answers....
1. Defence: Bomber or corvette class ships are still a threat to your capital ships (even of they cant trash it completely, they can still cripple it) - and their weapons will have a range comparable to your capital ships primary weapons - probably way out of range of your turrets. So you want to send fighters out to stop them before they kill your capital ships.
2. Planetary combat: Massive capital ships will be rather more vulnerable to gravitational effects than small, light fighters. A fighter can fly close to a planet, whereas the capital ship may be broken up by tidal effects if it gets too close. Furthermore, capital ships cant actually land on planets - it can at best orbit them and send troops down to occupy it, maybe softening the planet up with an orbital barrage or two. Fighters can help you get air superiority in the ensuing land battle (if you want to go that far)
3. Although a fighter might not be able to destroy a capital ship, destroying such a behemoth might not be necessary. Consider this scenario: a planet is protected by a single capital ship: all you have is a few fighters and troop shuttles. Who gets to take the planet? You do. All your fighters need to do is ecort the shuttles past the ship (not difficult, since they will easily outmanouevre it) and land on the planet, and you can claim it. Sure, he can bombard you, but he cant actually establish a military prescence on the planet.
Arg.... Thats enough for now..... Maybe some more later.....
Edited by - Sandman on February 14, 2001 8:29:56 PM
Hoside:
quote:
I personally think that people like to build building in rts games (isn't that one of the big parts of the strategy?) but thats just me.
You are right. What you build is a big part of the strategy - probably the biggest in the vast majority of RTS's currently available. Which IMHO sucks. If I want to build stuff, I'll play sim city. I think that in order to qualify for the 'S' in RTS, good military tactics should win the battle. Yet in most RTS's the battle is won by people who memorise a perfect build order. You can be the greatest military tactician on the planet, if you havent learnt the correct order to build your buildings you will lose to Mr Tank Rush Boy who has a copy of the Unofficial Red Alert guide and learnt the correct build order by heart. This is one of the reasons I hate RA and most of the other RTS's that are out there - in my opinion they arent strategy games, they are just resource management games, and simple ones at that. Red alert is just a simplified version of The Settlers.
By getting rid of that aspect of RTS's I hope that the players will be able to concentrate on proper tactics, rather than waste their time on resource management.
Wav:
quote:
Dude, if I ever get the $2 million to spare, you can design my AOE-killer anyday! Nice ideas.
Thanks. Its nice to know that someone is on my wavelength. (and when that $2m turns up, give me a shout
)quote:
It almost seems that resource management should be a function of some greater overall strategy. The kind of just-in-time factory logistics you see in typical RTS games wouldn't really work here. Maybe this could tie in to a sort of Risk like campaign, where what you have in supply is based on what you did a few winters ago...
You kinda hit the nail on the head there - thats exactly the sort of thing I am aiming for. Each terrain region would have different resources, but very few (if any) would have all the resources needed to support any sizable population. Hence the need for supply lines between regions. Of course, we dont want to bother the player with these too much, (ie the AI takes care of them automatically - at least most of the time) but they will play a part in the overall strategy, since they will need to be protected. Hence you get emergent complexity, with certain regions which, on their own, are completely useless, but become tactically invaluable because your enemies supply lines might depend on them.
quote:
This I would really like to see. All you really care about is that the right buildings are built in the right place. A template could even work here ("build me a military city", "build me a trade city") Players might even configure their own templates.
I am glad someone likes that idea
I was thinking that trade cities, mining towns etc. would spring up wherever they were appropriate. Every city would probably have a blacksmith etc. eventually, regardless of whether you commission them or not. Rather than design specific templates, (I want to avoid as much abstraction in the interface as possible) I though that you could vary the style of the city by subsidising/commissioning certain building types from your own coffers. So if you want a military city, you commission a barracks early in the cities' development and put extra money into recruitment. Left to its own devices, I would like the town to develop in a sensible way eg. towns on the border with your enemy would become well protected, towns with lots of supply lines running through them will be trade towns etc. This might seem a lot of work to do something that the player has no control over, but I think it would be worth it - the player will have an interesting map to fight over, with political and economic boundaries, without having to worry about micromanagement. I also think that it will draw the player into the game world more, without being overwhelming, in a way that very few RTS's seem to manage.
quote:
Hah. Very nice. If you tied in the chance to hit with troop quality this could make elite troops DEADLY. Then you'd be creating quantity vs. quality strategy players could follow (can mass attacks, for instance, overwhelm your elite guards?)
Yes, these units would be very powerful, but they would be as rare as hens teeth. In a conventional RTS, units like this would be bad, since they would (very likely) dominate lesser units. (Reason - while they may be more expensive to build, they are easier to control (because you have less of them) and therefore a more desirable choice than millions of weaker units (a nightmare to coordinate) and generally more effective) However, since the player doesnt have too much control over the exact units that make up his army (he can spend money on particular troop types to promote them, but ultimately it will be impossible to have an army consisting entirely of these elite units - at most they might make up 5% of your total force). Hence these units will be interesting, but never dominate the battlefield. You may end up with some cool fights though, with just a handful of your elite guard defending a castle from a massed opponent. The fact that they don't dominate the battlefield doesnt stop them from being decisive when used properly...
quote:
Nice design. Every give any thought to space-based RTS games??? (I'm designing one now)
Space based RTS's. Thats a tough one. The trouble with space is that it is big and empty - you need to find some way of introducing interesting tactics without relying on terrain (because there isnt any). There is no real-life precedent either, so space tactics is a completely new field. Also, realism will (to a large extent) have to go out of the window - starships obeying proper newtonian physics in an RTS might be an interesting challenge, but I suspect that most people would find it too difficult to control.
Here are a few ideas, but bear in mind these arent too well thought out.....
Manoueverability: Ships arent perfectly manoueverable, they cant all stop dead from full speed and they cant turn on a penny. This is particularly important for capital ships - while they may have 360 degree fire coverage, their primary weapons will have limited fire arcs to the front - and it will take a long time to change the direction the ship is pointing in. Hence positioning these things carefully may form part of a successful strategy.
Damage: I am sorry, but a capital ship three miles long isnt going to blow up because a few fighters shot it with laser guns. These things should be rather like the castles in the medieval RTS, and they will require special means of dealing with them. Super powerful weapons alone won't necessarily destroy the ship, maybe just damage it enought that a boarding party can get inside and completely disable it. Of course, such ships will have large numbers of marines aboard - the aim of the super guns might be to blow out the habitable parts of the ship in order to kill as many of the crew as possible, so that a boarding action might succeed, rather than go for the heavily armoured crtical sections like the main reactor. On the subject of which, a ship 3 miles long would probably have more than one reactor - taking one out would only damage part of the ship and only disable it partially.
Fighters: If a lowly fighter cant damage a capital ship, what is the point of it? Why not just have loads of capital ships? There are a fewof answers....
1. Defence: Bomber or corvette class ships are still a threat to your capital ships (even of they cant trash it completely, they can still cripple it) - and their weapons will have a range comparable to your capital ships primary weapons - probably way out of range of your turrets. So you want to send fighters out to stop them before they kill your capital ships.
2. Planetary combat: Massive capital ships will be rather more vulnerable to gravitational effects than small, light fighters. A fighter can fly close to a planet, whereas the capital ship may be broken up by tidal effects if it gets too close. Furthermore, capital ships cant actually land on planets - it can at best orbit them and send troops down to occupy it, maybe softening the planet up with an orbital barrage or two. Fighters can help you get air superiority in the ensuing land battle (if you want to go that far)
3. Although a fighter might not be able to destroy a capital ship, destroying such a behemoth might not be necessary. Consider this scenario: a planet is protected by a single capital ship: all you have is a few fighters and troop shuttles. Who gets to take the planet? You do. All your fighters need to do is ecort the shuttles past the ship (not difficult, since they will easily outmanouevre it) and land on the planet, and you can claim it. Sure, he can bombard you, but he cant actually establish a military prescence on the planet.
Arg.... Thats enough for now..... Maybe some more later.....
Edited by - Sandman on February 14, 2001 8:29:56 PM
This topic is closed to new replies.
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