Rts games. are they really strategy ?

[advocatexxx 0]

After playing numerous titles, including (but not limited to) Warcraft series, Starcraft, Empire Earth, Total Annihilation, I now question the person/organization who decided to label these games as "Real Time Strategy".

Has anyone actually thoroughly planned an attack ? Uhm, maybe sometimes. Usually you juse produce the right counter units, a bunch of this a bunch of that and you attack.

In one of the latest so called "RTS" games, Empire Earth striked me as the worst one of all. While spanning millions of years and containing hundreds of units, it fails to effectively entertain the player due to many problems. One of which is unlimited resources. Yes, simply fully populate a capitol (50 citizens) next to 2 gold and 2 iron ores, and watch the resources pour in forever. Thus there are no battles for resources. Opponents merely stack up on units, store them in many fortresses, and an extremely defensive battle is fought by building AA guns/Walls/Towers close to your enemy.

Have these games forgotten the simplest of rules ? One no longer needs to bring the army with him, merely bring one worker/citizen and build a mass of factories/barracks on a desired location and within 2 minutes you'll have a huge army.

..Heloooooooo ?!

Did it also ever occur to anyone that units don't only cost resources and time to build/train, but also to maintain ? I have yet to come across a so called "RTS" game that requires resources such as food and money to actually maintain a unit. A foot soldier for example would require a monthly cost of a couple of hundred dollars and a couple of kilograms of food as well as ammunition. Sadly though, all that people seem to do is establish a stable, extremely well protected economy and just shell out units.

It also never occured to anyone to establish a supply-line feature ? In real life one cannot build 20 naval yards on enemy ground within 120 seconds and have a mass navy ready in less time than it takes for the opponent to cross the small sea. I find such things highly unrealistic.

Military units should be supplied with convoys delivering ammunition, medical supplies, food and so forth.

There is a countless number of strategic components that are missing from these games.

Much more often did I find myself micro-managing individual units making sure they're attacking the enemy army instead of their harmless walls/buildings.

Forgive me, but after a lengthy evaluation, I call this genre "Small Scale Tactics" rather than "Real Time Strategy", as they have far more to do with tactics than strategy. Or at least that's one type of strategy I have never heard of.

[Renagade 0]

Did u ever play shogun:total war ?

[foxer 0]

you may like sudden strike.

[WKK Gimbal 0]

I hate RTS - it has nothing to do with outsmarting an enemy, careful planning or changing of these plans as enemies surprise you. It's merely a click-fest, like the old Olympic games for the Commodore64.

Try some turnbased ones, or mix or turnbased and realtime, like:

Shogun

Deadlock

and ofcourse when it ships: Medieval: Total War check here!

[LordZach 0]

i like Jane's fleet command as a RTS, you don't get these unlimited amount of instant building battleships and sending everything you have at the enemy can easily result in you losing.

[WKK Gimbal 0]

Check out the movie at the Medieval: Total War link I posted. It looks very cool and realistic.

[ralphwiggum 6]

it is sad that so called RTS are mostly just bunch of resource bundling games. Blizzard's XCraft Series is prime example.

you are more likely busy managing resource and figure out how to combine units rather than think of strategies. Ofcourse, a right combination of different units is important, but these games lack in strategies during battle.

2 b honest, I'm not much of a strategist, and I see less chance of actually performing a useful strategy. but these RTS games are more about managing than strategy as AdvocateXXX said. and good point he pointed out. military neeeds supplies and that's what lacks in most RTS games.

probably the closest to RTS that I've seens is Shogun: The Total War. The same dev team are coming up with Medieval:The Total War(see WKK Gimbal's link above).

but still RTS has long ways to go before it reflects any real life truth.

[Sadico 1]

I like fleet command too. Have you tried the nwp mod?

[LordZach 0]

yeah, it was nice except the AI was too buggy for me, half the time my F-14s would crash into the ground or nobody would fire their missiles.

[Sadico 1]

Yep, but most of that bugs have been corrected

[Hardliner 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (advocatexxx @ May 25 2002,12:52)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Military units should be supplied with convoys delivering ammunition, medical supplies, food and so forth.

Much more often did I find myself micro-managing individual units making sure they're attacking the enemy army instead of their harmless walls/buildings.<span id='postcolor'>

World War 3: Black Gold does something similar to this. Each unit needs rearming. Choppers do it automatically so you don't worry about that, as long as theres choppers and a supply depot.

You also get more control over your units too, like giving them orders to fall back when damaged or out of ammo, or fight to death. Also order them to hold fast, stay in the immediate area or give chase, fire at will, hold fire or return fire.

Situtation is realistic too.

OIL. Everyone wants it. Americans might not like it because the Iraqi missions involve terrorist activities in USA. But the fight is for oil.

Its an ok game got T80s, Shilkas, Abrams and other real weapons in it, can be American, Russian or Iraqi. Good how units are brought onto the field by chopper and transport plane. Without oil you have no money to build, so thats not easy like having unlimited money or whatever, but its good.

[LordZach 0]

i hope so, engaging a target with guns when you are getting shot at by AAMs is not very nice to look at

[Hardliner 0]

The good thing about being Russian is when doing nothing they repair themselves, the Iraqi and US units need a repair vehical. Russian structures also repair themselves.

The SCUD is just great! BIG mushroom!

Would having the BTR 60 in OFP matter to anyone? Same as BMP I suppose. Its good in WW3, amphibious like BMP. Shlika goes throught water as well.

[Warin 0]

Being an old timer wargamer, (Avalon Hill...Squad Leader, The Longest Day, Panzer Blitz, Luftwaffe) I think RTS games really should be called RTA games. Real Time Action. Because there really isnt much in the way of strategy.

I stopped playing Starcraft against people on Battle.Net because it seems like the only maps being played are custome ones with virtually unlimited resources, taking out the only strategy needed...which was properly marshalling and spending your limited resources.

The closest RTS games that I can think of are the Close Combat games. You had limited units, you had strategic goals, and the action happened in real time.

I will buy Warcraft III as soon as it's available, because in spite of being misnamed... Blizzard makes really good games. And from what I've heard, WCIII tries to fix the build/defend/rush tactics of previous *craft games. We'll see

[advocatexxx 0]

I think I played the demo of WWIII. Though after reading some not-so-great reviews, and the fact that the game failed to cause much stir I figured buying the whole thing probably isn't the best option.

Shogun Total War is about those ancient Asian battles if I remember correctly right ? How you organize them on the battlefield and such. Cool.

I've come to realize Civilization III has many of the features that RTS games lack, but it looks terrible and the fact that it's turn based puts no time constraints on the player. Not to mention it has no multiplayer capability.

I always loved the SimCity series, they have such detail and diversity. Honestly I can't wait for SimCity 4.

If only a game could combine the depth of SimCity and the features from Civilization III along with multiplayer support, maybe we would get some decent game. All RTS games are only about war. They hardly have any diplomatic options. It's either foe or friend. It would be nice to have a set of features which could simulate growing tensions for various reasons, which would cause other nations to become concerned. A game in which you could seek and secure allies prior to declaring a war on a country. A game in which you couldn't just shell out 100 tanks in less than 2 minutes, but where the mobilization process and transport would take careful planning. If you could organize your forces into actualy fighting divisions and choose whether they be a fast response airborne division or a slow response, hard-hitting heavy armored division.

Even the US Military, being the most powerful force in the world doesn't just send their troops. Careful planning, logistics, supply paths, establishment of defensive positions, fortresses and about a hundred other things combine to form a good decisive strategy.

It's something none of the games I've seen so far have. And it's been what, 7 years since first Warcraft came out ? Except for a few minor improvements, the whole RTS genre is still very much the same.

[Hardliner 0]

Close Combat games are good. If these games were anything like that they would be Real Time Tactical games, not strategy.

WW3 has limited number of units you can have so you don't get 100+ tanks, plus I don't think you can change the amount of oil on the map, I ain't seen an editor but there probably is one. Good thing too is night time. All units put their head lights on and it looks good. You can also choose to have oil fields to get money or you can just have all the money a maximum of $300,000 to use for war and thats it which ain't bad, no oil fields. Its more than enough to fight a war in WW3 anyway.

The Warcraft III trailer looked good.

[moerty 0]

i know the discussion is about RTS with huge resource management, but there is one smaller RTS, kind of old, which is still the best in my mind, X-COM Apocalypse. it's a very challenging game with amazing levels and enemies, which forces a player to use the maximum amount of strategy to take contain an alien infestation.

[Hardliner 0]

I read reviews on Real War I think it was called similar to WW III but HELL did it look crap! compared to WW III anyway. And where I am I bought WW III for $49.95 and Real War was like $100!

But yeah I would like a game like you say advocatexxx. I would not mind a game where you can choose the country you want to be the leader of and then you interact with the other countries all over the world (altho this might seem like a totally different game than what you said) Like being Russia or USA or Iraqi and then dealing with deplomacy, create trouble like Saddam did, sign treaties, aid other countries. The kind of game that is like Shaddow President or Crisis in the Kremlin or Middle East Political Simulator (old games but still) dealing with issues in your country and others. Having random things happen all over the world. The ultimate political game. Would not mind something like this. Maybe having it current time or Cold War time, both.

[RedRogue 0]

There was a game I had a very long time ago called Victory at Sea. I think it was by the now defunc 360 developers. It was about the War in the pacific in WW2. You could play American, Japanese, British, or Australian forces.

You had to do everything for your fleets, planes, and troops. Refuel them at sea, build new aircraft, resupply positions, set up CAP, strike and various aircover, send damaged ships to drydock. It was very managment intesive and had alot of bugs however, I think its why it never caught on.

[Warin 0]

Ooooh. Harpoon 4.

The latest computer incarnation of a wargame game so good that it:

Is used at the Naval Academy.

It spawned one of the most prolific military fiction authours of all time... Tom Clancy.

Larry Bond (the guy that created Harpoon) helped Tom Clancy on his first book and later wrote some rather mediocre novels of his own.  In fact, Tom Clancy freely admits that what he knew then about the navy came from his copy of Harpoon.

I cant wait to see if they make this a game worth owning!

[cybrid 0]

Real War was very dissapointing. The makers claim that the military actually uses that game for training. They may as well play red alert, maybe they'd be trained better, faster.!!!

[John C Flett 0]

Just recently finished playong 'Z Steel Soldiers' and while I enjoyed it I was also questioning how much strategy I had actually used.

Shogun is a cracker. The constant adjusting of position and formation, trying to catch a weakness before striking, the uncertainty of quality and moral. It is a superb game and very unusual in the amount of effort that is involved BEFORE your armies actually clash while you fight for terrain and position.

Close Combat also, in that a battle is mostly won or lost in planning and execution rather than numbers and force.

But these games are sadly very unusual and theres not much promise of more like them soon. Medievil : Total War and perhaps Preatorians. ( Spelling ? ) but I think the arcade side of RTS is still very much to the fore.

[Hardliner 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (advocatexxx @ May 25 2002,19:42)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I think I played the demo of WWIII.  Though after reading some not-so-great reviews, and the fact that the game failed to cause much stir I figured buying the whole thing probably isn't the best option.<span id='postcolor'>

I did not bother with that. A friend showed me WW3 and I liked what I saw so I bought it. I do not judge games by what other people think of them, only what I think of them. Seeing the full product helps in that regard before getting it.

Also where I am all the crap games get the spotlight while the good ones are hidden to the back and not given much credit. Just because a game is expensive does not mean it is worth it. FlashPoint was worth it.

[Akira 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (cybrid @ May 26 2002,00:27)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Real War was very dissapointing. The makers claim that the military actually uses that game for training. They may as well play red alert, maybe they'd be trained better, faster.!!!<span id='postcolor'>

I always get Real War and WW3 mixed up...all I remember is the one with the drill sarge from Full Metal Jacket is the one to avoid. It got terrible reviews, basically saying it was utter crap.

Also Civ 3 has a new add-on coming that adds new civs and a variety of multi-player options (including a "real time" option).

http://www.civ3.com/pressrelease.cfm for info on the add-on.

[WKK Gimbal 0]

soon comes Neverwinter Nights -- then I'll say: Fuck all other games