I was reading Sun Tzu, but then, I came to the realization that video games these days don't have the same type of strategy. In a real battle, you have to worry about things like whether or not to make camp here or there. Also, in real battle, you need to try to minimize the damage done to the property. You also have to use spies and convert spies to gain information, which, in a real battle, determines victory or defeat. You should have to determine at what time of day to attack or retreat. You won't have an overhead view telling you everything your troops see, and instead you will need to make sure your information lines are working. An army lives on its stomach, and you will be able to burn the enemy's food supplies while protecting your own.
This may seem to be complicated, and indeed it is. However, there have been more complicated things (i.e. Dwarf Fortress, particle physics), so it's a matter of finding a very dedicated team, and funding might be taken care of with indiegogo or Kickstarter. This would best be taken care of by something similar to Dwarf Fortress (i.e. develop it an indefinite amount of time but let people play what you've worked on so far).
Edit:Basically, a game that covers the overall war itself. A game in which your numbers play an important role in the role, but do not determine the results.
By the way, the setting doesn't have to be modern.
Oh, and to clarify, my thoughts while reading the book were "These would make a very fun and strategical game", not something like "Games should be more realistic". I'm just exploring ways in which realism could add fun and strategy as well as tactics.
Realistic strategy game?
I think there are already really in-depth War games out there (trying to find this site that listed some of them, but I can't seem to find it x.x) but remember, those games tend to get overly complex and is not suited for casual gamers, which is where the money is at. It's also hard to make good enough AI for such a game.
Are you talking about real time strategy?
I think there are fairly realistic turn-based strategy games (where the information lines and the autonomous unit behaviour is modelled by the turns and much more time to think.).
Otherwise, in a real time strategy game, if you play as the commander/admiral, you would just look at some green screens with green dots and text, which is only interesting for a small number of gamers.
But I think there are games like that...
The most realistic RTS I played so far was Blitzkrieg.
I think there are fairly realistic turn-based strategy games (where the information lines and the autonomous unit behaviour is modelled by the turns and much more time to think.).
Otherwise, in a real time strategy game, if you play as the commander/admiral, you would just look at some green screens with green dots and text, which is only interesting for a small number of gamers.
But I think there are games like that...
The most realistic RTS I played so far was Blitzkrieg.
I used to be in an artillery unit. We had a battery if six howitzers in our company and about 150 marines. Our unit was composed of the following:
-Supply: Takes care of guns, beans and bullets.
-Gun Line: The crew running each howitzer
-Fire Direction Control (FDC): The section which calculates the needed powder, rounds, fuzes, tube elevation angles, and tube lateral angles to put a round on target.
-Forward Observers (FO): These guys are the target spotters who communicate to the FDC about what they see on the battlefield
-Comm: These guys run wires between all of the sections and maintain radios and antennas so that everyone can talk
-Local Security: People patrolling the perimeter to make sure nobody is trying to sneak in
-Command: The officers who decide when the unit moves and where the unit moves
Not in our unit, but available assets:
-Counter-battery radar: Spots the trajectory of a round in flight and calculates its point of impact and point of origin to a precise grid coordinate
-Signals Intelligence: Listens to the airwaves and triangulates the position of a broadcasting station
So, you could make a more realistic "artillery" game by adding all of these elements. If you shoot the FO's, then the artillery unit no longer has eyes. If you shoot the FDC, the artillery loses its brain. If you shoot the comm, the artillery loses its mouth and ears. If you shoot the gun line, the artillery can't shoot anymore. A functioning artillery unit works like an oiled engine, and if you take out any of its gears, it seizes up. So, imagine you've got a forward observer attached to a company of infantry in a vast battlefield. An enemy sniper spots the dude with a radio strapped to his back and shoots him first (they have one of the shortest life expectancies in a fight). The FO is dead. Artillery support is out of the picture. If you wanted to play a game of artillery vs. artillery, it's now broken because the system is so fragile.
Suppose that you and your opponent have counter-battery radar. You don't know where the enemy artillery is positioned and they don't know where you are. The first person to shoot their guns reveals their position, so you want to make sure that you're shooting to disable the enemy artillery before they can shoot you. A round can have a flight time of up to two or three minutes, depending on angle and distance. This is more than enough time for a good artillery unit to shoot back. So, two emplaced artillery batteries facing off against each other will be a contest of training, response times, and who can move out of position the fastest.
This realism doesn't make for much "fun" in a game. Most artillery games are much more simple where you've got artillery cannons facing off against each other and you have to make a guess at the needed power and elevation. The game has abstracted away the complexity, added some simplicity, broke some reality (vision), and made the skill element of the game the "FDC" (which in reality is a precision science with little guessing involved). So: "Reality/realism" is not necessarily "fun" and "fun" is not necessarily "reality/realism".
-Supply: Takes care of guns, beans and bullets.
-Gun Line: The crew running each howitzer
-Fire Direction Control (FDC): The section which calculates the needed powder, rounds, fuzes, tube elevation angles, and tube lateral angles to put a round on target.
-Forward Observers (FO): These guys are the target spotters who communicate to the FDC about what they see on the battlefield
-Comm: These guys run wires between all of the sections and maintain radios and antennas so that everyone can talk
-Local Security: People patrolling the perimeter to make sure nobody is trying to sneak in
-Command: The officers who decide when the unit moves and where the unit moves
Not in our unit, but available assets:
-Counter-battery radar: Spots the trajectory of a round in flight and calculates its point of impact and point of origin to a precise grid coordinate
-Signals Intelligence: Listens to the airwaves and triangulates the position of a broadcasting station
So, you could make a more realistic "artillery" game by adding all of these elements. If you shoot the FO's, then the artillery unit no longer has eyes. If you shoot the FDC, the artillery loses its brain. If you shoot the comm, the artillery loses its mouth and ears. If you shoot the gun line, the artillery can't shoot anymore. A functioning artillery unit works like an oiled engine, and if you take out any of its gears, it seizes up. So, imagine you've got a forward observer attached to a company of infantry in a vast battlefield. An enemy sniper spots the dude with a radio strapped to his back and shoots him first (they have one of the shortest life expectancies in a fight). The FO is dead. Artillery support is out of the picture. If you wanted to play a game of artillery vs. artillery, it's now broken because the system is so fragile.
Suppose that you and your opponent have counter-battery radar. You don't know where the enemy artillery is positioned and they don't know where you are. The first person to shoot their guns reveals their position, so you want to make sure that you're shooting to disable the enemy artillery before they can shoot you. A round can have a flight time of up to two or three minutes, depending on angle and distance. This is more than enough time for a good artillery unit to shoot back. So, two emplaced artillery batteries facing off against each other will be a contest of training, response times, and who can move out of position the fastest.
This realism doesn't make for much "fun" in a game. Most artillery games are much more simple where you've got artillery cannons facing off against each other and you have to make a guess at the needed power and elevation. The game has abstracted away the complexity, added some simplicity, broke some reality (vision), and made the skill element of the game the "FDC" (which in reality is a precision science with little guessing involved). So: "Reality/realism" is not necessarily "fun" and "fun" is not necessarily "reality/realism".
There are some games that run an artillery unit semi realistically with you needing to have vision on a target from another source before they can fire. So you could shoot that and cut off vision. They don't have radio lines because RTS games don't really work that way.
There are some theoretical MMO games where there are no NPCs and are long range weapons where you could effectively simulate an artillery unit. But obviously you can't do it in single player games because it would require simulating several human brains.
There are some theoretical MMO games where there are no NPCs and are long range weapons where you could effectively simulate an artillery unit. But obviously you can't do it in single player games because it would require simulating several human brains.
attss, Sun Tsu is a great read eh? The facets of conflict are incredible to consider even in dealing with simple aspects of life like arguments or business. I think the trick to using Sun Tsu as inspiration for game design is to consider the aspects that Sun Tsu explores (like you mentioned) and apply as many as you can to a fun game of strategy and combat. I'm not entirely sure that realism is the key, I think its more important to allow players to learn about the same aspects you're learning from the Sun Tsu text by experiencing the importance of these aspects in a command and combat setting.
I always felt the best way to explore this is to start from the top and explore the major faces of command and soldiering as you descend the hierarchy. Sovereigns or representatives for the people that make the choice to attack or request defense from attack decide on the "people's goals" of the military. The general or strategist has to decide the major aspects that Sun Tsu explores I think once this general knows himself and his enemy he should then create "intelligence/military strategic objectives". The officers in command of these objectives are charged with creating "operational waypoints" for the groups they are charged with. Lastly you have field officers issuing "tactical orders" to successfully take or hold each waypoint on the way to winning each objectives and claiming victory for the people's goals.
This is the way I hope to explore Sun Tsu's text. By enabling players the chance to earn their way from being a soldier to becoming a general and understand these perspectives of conflict before exploring the challenge of command to achieving the "people's goals" (the game's story).
I really dig this stuff, so if you start on a project attss (or anyone else) and you need another designer/animator msg me. Or if you're interested in a very visually simplified design I'm working on (that explores the above) msg me as well! Good post.
I always felt the best way to explore this is to start from the top and explore the major faces of command and soldiering as you descend the hierarchy. Sovereigns or representatives for the people that make the choice to attack or request defense from attack decide on the "people's goals" of the military. The general or strategist has to decide the major aspects that Sun Tsu explores I think once this general knows himself and his enemy he should then create "intelligence/military strategic objectives". The officers in command of these objectives are charged with creating "operational waypoints" for the groups they are charged with. Lastly you have field officers issuing "tactical orders" to successfully take or hold each waypoint on the way to winning each objectives and claiming victory for the people's goals.
This is the way I hope to explore Sun Tsu's text. By enabling players the chance to earn their way from being a soldier to becoming a general and understand these perspectives of conflict before exploring the challenge of command to achieving the "people's goals" (the game's story).
I really dig this stuff, so if you start on a project attss (or anyone else) and you need another designer/animator msg me. Or if you're interested in a very visually simplified design I'm working on (that explores the above) msg me as well! Good post.
Actually, I feel the opposite. In games frequently you need to worry about more things than in real life. For example a medieval baron, he would just say "go there" and the army will go there and they will worry about food themselves and other things. Actually, the leader frequently could be quite incompetent and it still would work out fine 
Note that there were some real life presidents of certain countries that were making noobish mistakes of forgetting (or even not knowing in the first place) where exactly a certain another country is located
Something not imaginable in a strategy game
Realistic strategy should deal with LESS details, because that's how it works in real life, the supreme leader have TONS on generals/minsters that make decisions instead of him.
Of course that's not exactly fun, because players want not realistic games where you have MORE control than in real life situation, so they want to dvelve in MORE details...
Plus, if you make it more realistic by reducing the details they will accuse you of making it nonrealistic Oh joys of game design
Note that there were some real life presidents of certain countries that were making noobish mistakes of forgetting (or even not knowing in the first place) where exactly a certain another country is located
Something not imaginable in a strategy game Realistic strategy should deal with LESS details, because that's how it works in real life, the supreme leader have TONS on generals/minsters that make decisions instead of him.
Of course that's not exactly fun, because players want not realistic games where you have MORE control than in real life situation, so they want to dvelve in MORE details...
Plus, if you make it more realistic by reducing the details they will accuse you of making it nonrealistic
Oh joys of game design
What do you mean, "RTS games don't really work that way"? One certainly could build a RTS game which works that way, and like OP, I think games could get very interesting mechanics from this stuff. Using electronic warfare units to cut radio communications between units at strategic times, etc.
There are some games that run an artillery unit semi realistically with you needing to have vision on a target from another source before they can fire. So you could shoot that and cut off vision. They don't have radio lines because RTS games don't really work that way.
Games containing actual strategy do not receive a lot of innovation because they don't get much investment in general. They don't get much investment because their very nature is to be aimed at a small niche group of players: those who are both able to think, and actually want to do so while playing a videogame. Then, there's a problem specific to these kinds of mechanics: uncertainty and unstability introduced by fragile communication would probably make it impossible to code an AI that isn't retarded. And if you can't have a good AI, you must have multiplayer and critical mass of players, which is unlikely to happen for a radically new kind of game whose genre has a low player base to begin with.
They don't have radio lines because RTS games don't really work that way.
That may be true of current RTS offerings, but given we're talking purely theoretically at the moment it might be an interesting thought experiment to consider:
What would an RTS be like if they did work that way? (that is, featuring lines of communication).
I think the player would have less direct control over individual units: instead of giving very specific instructions on movement, placement and activity of units (move here, shoot that, deploy this), the player would give more general instructions (hold this area, engage this target) which the units would then go about doing in a more autonomous fashion.
Rather than individual units (1 infantryman, 1 rocket soldier, etc.) you would probably command small quads composed of those different individual parts. You would give the squad their objectives, but it would largely be up to their command AI as to how they achieved it. For example, you might order a squad to defend a group of buildings, but it would be up to the AI to decide to put a sniper on the roof (or not).
If a line of communication was cut, you would be unable to send or receive information from a squad -- they would probably be hidden by fog-of-war, and would continue to act autonomously based on whatever orders you had already issued until communication was restored. If all objectives were achieved they may simply hold their position, or they might try to restore communication for themselves. Perhaps you could influence this behaviour by setting priorities.
Obviously, all of this would rely on more sophisticated AI than is often present. Individual units would still operate in much the same way as usual, but rather than receiving orders from the player they would receive orders from the AI for their squad, which would be trying to achieve the objectives set by the player.
Depending on the type of the lines of communication you might have a delayed flow of information. Perhaps a radio line allows you to immediately change a squads objectives and see immediate progress updates, but if the radio is down (jammed, dead operator, transmitter destroyed, whatever) you might have the alternative of sending runners back and forth with orders. Your units would not be fully lost in fog-of-war, but you would get "snapshot" updates a minute or two after events actually transpired. You could issue a new objective, but it wouldn't reach the squad immediately, and they would continue to act on the previous objective until it arrived. Imagine the tension of realising you need to preserve a bridge you had previously ordered destroyed, but not knowing if the new orders would arrive before the squad blew it up.
As noted above, this would probably appeal to a smaller niche of players, as many are used to and expect the more direct control that existing titles give them. That niche may or may not be worth pursuing.
In a discussion of different game play styles, you should never feel restricted by the styles of existing games. You might find some fantastic and different ideas by considering something completely different, and you'll probably find some terrible ideas as well (and perhaps gain a better understanding of why existing games are the way they are) -- you'll probably get a lot of "ok" ideas that aren't terrible but need more work, or which are fantastic in theory but may be tricky to implement; if you can make them work, you might just have a new sub-genre or genre on your hands!
Actually, the artillery game sounds really cool! I've thought a lot about incorporating various tactical or strategic mechanics into games, but honestly I never knew there was quite so much involved in artillery (I've seen some awesome stuff on the newer, automated guns, and they look so much like tanks that I just kind of assumed they maneuvered and operated like long-range tanks).
Honestly, I was really disappointed by the Art of War from an inspiration standpoint. It is a fascinating book, and remarkable for how coolly and rationally it evaluates strategy, but I think RTS games really need to move closer to the ground, not further from it. The valuable unused territory is in high level tactics and low level strategy, not high level strategy or diplomacy (or, for that matter, economic management or individual combat). That is not to say that those things don't belong at all, but I think they've all been done enough times to be familiar and slightly stale (unless of course you have some really interesting twist).
Honestly, I was really disappointed by the Art of War from an inspiration standpoint. It is a fascinating book, and remarkable for how coolly and rationally it evaluates strategy, but I think RTS games really need to move closer to the ground, not further from it. The valuable unused territory is in high level tactics and low level strategy, not high level strategy or diplomacy (or, for that matter, economic management or individual combat). That is not to say that those things don't belong at all, but I think they've all been done enough times to be familiar and slightly stale (unless of course you have some really interesting twist).
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