I always thought a game with these 4 races would make a fun urban rts:

Martian war machines - No construction or base building, Start with a set amount points and never gets any more that they have to use to buy war machines that are sent from mars. Similar to war of the worlds. This race is about a few set piece super units and careful battle field tactics. So you might have a enough points to call in 3 walkers on a map but once they are gone they gone.

Ninjas - Fully customizable units that rely on stealth and quick strikes. Hidden bases with quick travel build options around the map. Limited to only a handful of units on the battle field at a time.

Zombies - Aggressive neutral race uncontrolled and attack everyone else. Slowly spreed throughout the city unless contained. Danger to everyone but the martians. Martians can spreed the zombie virus and indirectly control them with the right unit.

Human Soldiers - performance based resource allocation points which determine the size and units within the army. Can build defense bases and command posts. Instead of building individual units you plan and build entire squads or divisions and then deploy them as a whole to the battle field provided you have enough RAP available.

The idea was that all 3 playable races played completely differently with different goals. Game play was more victory point based as well. So while the army is defending city streets from the zombie horde and alien war machines the ninja's are robbing banks, killing vips, or taking out units on both sides.

My three most hated aspects of rts games though have always been:

1 - Winner goes to first move advantage - whoever comes out the best from the opening attack is most likely going to win.

2 - Winner goes to best microer - Whichever player is best a micro managing units is the one who will win.

3 - Tech Trees - Why do I have to waste time leveling up buildings on the battle field. Let me choose my tech level and initial setup before the battle starts with army points or some other system.

[quote name='TechnoGoth' timestamp='1358387598' post='5022402']
My three most hated aspects of rts games though have always been:
1 - Winner goes to first move advantage - whoever comes out the best from the opening attack is most likely going to win.
2 - Winner goes to best microer - Whichever player is best a micro managing units is the one who will win.
3 - Tech Trees - Why do I have to waste time leveling up buildings on the battle field. Let me choose my tech level and initial setup before the battle starts with army points or some other system.
[/quote]

- Though related to another post, these are good points.

I believe 1 can be accomplished by making opening defenses stronger in the game, but also more distributed. You can't take a base full force for a while. (instead of training a bunch of Zerglings sending them over to the enemy site, and taking out their finances right away.) but also more distributed defenses, so you have to take out several points. even if you take out one, there are still a few more to go through.

I believe I have 2 solved with squad management, ai's and larger teams that are far more random. I have other posts relating to that.

and 3, I agree about the tech trees. Much of the work should already be done off the field. How often do we see real militaries create a base in the middle of a battle field and start training new soldiers? Or factories? These are things *usually* done offsite in safer locations.

[quote name='Kenji Kousagi' timestamp='1358515224' post='5022882']
A game like that would involve an incredible amount of micro for success. Especially mars. With only a few units period you can't afford to lose one.
[/quote]

Agreed, if the units were the focus, and the squad leader wasn't also incharge of getting food and managing construction and paying attention to enemy approaches. Sort of like the Starcraft levels where you don't build anything, but you are just going through a compound to get something.

[quote name='Kenji Kousagi' timestamp='1358515224' post='5022882']
As for tech trees, mars and the army would definately benefit. Even in TD games you upgrade your turrets. The reason most of those mechanics exist, is because it works well.
[/quote][quote name='TechnoGoth' timestamp='1358387598' post='5022402']

Why do I have to waste time leveling up buildings on the battle field. Let me choose my tech level and initial setup before the battle starts with army points or some other system.
[/quote]

Putting these things together, here is a thought. What if, once you have the technology known, each upgrade has a cost, and has a time added to it. Of course research in the first place might take time, but ultimately, you just say what your default tank is to include. Then you just tell a factory to produce x number of tanks (Not just a queue of 5 for instance) Perhaps you tell one factory to just keep producing them.

The idea being that you establish the default for your tanks, and then they just get built that way. But you could always click on a factory, and alter the way it produces tanks individually. Perhaps I want 3 tanks that have mine dissablers in front who will rotate on leading a pack of a dozen tanks. Its not that I'm paying for all my tanks to have that ability, just 3.

With this, you could come into a war with considerable amounts of capabilities, but you need to build up your material sources and factories to build them first. The more interesting capabilities they get, the longer and more expensive a single tank will be. but if you just go for the basic low armor, large rotating ground cannon, there pretty fast. but then you add on auto aiming machine guns, Surface to air tracking missiles, mine dissabler, Extra Armor, boosted engines and aim guidance systems, suddenly your tank costs 3 times as much and takes 3 times as long to build. in the mean time the enemy already has two simple tanks shooting your tank factory, and 1 more almost built.

I also like the idea of repair stations and upgrades for factories. For instance having "scrap yard" so to speak, where you send tanks that need upgrades or repairs. Perhaps you get a simple flag, upgrade all tanks to X level armor, if they aren't already there, and repair anything. Also set to salvage auto machine guns, as the setup isn't proving useful, and you could get money back on that, or use the guns as upgrades for soldiers. blah blah blah, I feel like I'm ranting now.

But between your two posts, (particularly earlier in them) I really like the idea of multiple goals that are unrelated. Sort of like capture the flag. but more flexible. for instance, the zerg want the plant and animal life in the area, so they try to "sap the life" from all the living things. Perhaps the protoss are after a spacial fleck material that is there from an exploded citadel from centuries before. but to get to that, they need all structures (hive/command center) out of the way to extract the materials from the ground. And then the terran want all the chrystal for powering space crafts. While the other sides can perhaps make use of this stuff, it is not a major goal of theres. The game is over once a single side completes its objectives, even if the others are not destroyed.

[quote name='AltarofScience' timestamp='1358543249' post='5022984']
You could easily make an AI that plays differently each time. But apparently it actually pisses players off. Humans are weird.
[/quote]

Do you have a reference to this? I'm not challenging it, but I do want to read about the context it was studied, like what game or test was done in this study. AI playing differently could mean a lot of things.

[quote name='Kenji Kousagi' timestamp='1358573780' post='5023101']
like that. All your tech is available right from the get go. You just customize your tank the way you like it and each addon costs X amount. That way it feels like more of the players coll guys not just; 'I win 'cause I upgraded faster.
[/quote][quote name='AltarofScience' timestamp='1358583973' post='5023126']

But then its just I win cause I picked the right combination of stats and my opponent had no way to respond because he didn't know what I picked until it was too late.
[/quote]

The addon's can be visible, and they way I figure, if the games increased the defensive capabilities, then you have time to react to knowledge acquisition. I see much of the upgrades, as increasing flexibility, not power. for instance a tank might have upgrades for Mine Collector (to collect up mines in front of it), auto turrent machine guns (to deal with troop attacks), Water Treds (to go over corner water tiles) and other feature flexible upgrades. It means that it changes the way that tactics work. I also like the idea that a single tank can not have every feature, so you can't "max" a tank out. you can only adapt it to the needs of the game. Espeically if your 'factory' for tanks could also just take a line of existing tanks, and refit them with a different setup that would be a lot faster. So, a variety of tanks approach from the south, and working on earlier defenses. You take a squad of tanks and run them through modifications as the enemy makes there way up.

Essentially, I like the idea that defenses are strong, and there is a value to the base besides the distance from the enemies base. I haven't seen as much in the way of seiges in modern RTS's. It takes a while to break through.