I want an actual real time strategy game. All popular RTSs are actually just about tactics and micro. I mean every SC2 guide will tell you that up to a very high level of play, if you're just doing more you'll be more efficient and win regardless of strategy. Why can't you just set a standing order of "make unit x" or "make unit x while we have gas until we get to 50 of them"? That's strategy. Having to tab back to a building and manually queue a couple of units every several seconds is just creating busywork for players, but thats what's necessary and optimal for playing SC2 and most RTS games well
this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
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Rise of Nations (originally released back in 2003) had/has some interesting ideas to reduce some of the busywork:
- Worker units will automatically try to gather/build nearby after a short (configurable) delay if they're not doing anything.
- Cities (the main worker-producing structure) has a rally point option that's essentially "all nearby empty resource gathering", so you can queue a dozen workers and they'll distribute themselves as they're created.
- Production buildings can be set to loop over their current queue, letting you build continually without intervention as long as you maintain enough resources each time the queue "restocks".
- Units that engage in combat without being given an explicit target will try (with modest success) to aim for nearby units which they counter.
For the most part, none of the implemented options are strictly better than micromanaging them yourself:
- You will always spend less time idling workers if you micromanage them yourself.
- The auto-rally-point doesn't always prioritize the resources that you would if you did it yourself.
- Queueing additional units is slightly less resource-efficient than only building one thing at a time.
- Total DPS is higher if you manually micro effectively.
But the options are there when you need them, which I think is a a nice design. It doesn't completely remove best-in-class players being rewarded for their speed as a player, but does raise the "speed floor", allowing slower players to get more bang for their buck APM-wise, and compete a bit more on the strategy/tactics side of the game instead.
By far one of my favorite games!
I love this concept; I had a friend from school viscerally defend SC: BW as superior to SC2 because in his words SC2 removed skill because of not having the unit select cap that BW did. That’s just less, as you put it, busywork, and then the player is more free to consider army compositions and positioning rather than drawing tons of rectangles. Removing more busywork in favor of actual strategy would be amazing.
There’s no micro in Chess, just strategy.
There are types of time management which I think can still be interesting. For example, are you able to afford -- in the resources of time and attention -- optimally micro'ing this important fight? Or are you going to have to yolo it a bit so that you can do multi-task economic tasks at the same time?
Some (much?) of the problem is that (for better or worse) skilled players can and will squeeze the game to optimality in terms of win rate, and that tends to collapse viable tactical and strategic choices. Once those choices have been optimised (the game is largely "solved"), the main way to get better is by being faster, not by being smarter.
I'd argue there is only micro in chess and no macro, but I get your point.
Good point. I suppose I was combining the intended definition of micro as in issuing individual or otherwise sufficiently granular actions with the extra categorization of busywork, and indeed in that regard chess is pure micro.
Supreme commander was what you describe. You setup your factory to make a unit or a set of units and repeatedly build them until canceled or not enough resources. You could zoom out to view the whole map. it was very much a strategy game and not really tactics or micro.
Beyond all Reason in a similar space
You might like: https://www.beyondallreason.info/ (gratis and open-source)
BAR is an amazing RTS! So many units on screen and 24 player games!
Hell, I should be able to upload an economic playbook with hundreds of rules like the one you described, and load it on game start. Then all I have to do is the actual unit movements.
Yep, take some ideas from single player colony management games.
It's astounding how much you can "automate" when fully using the filters and rules options in vanilla Rimworld. Mods increase that exponentially. Granted, different genre, singleplayer, and pausable while you configure things.
I think the challenge is balancing that with the real time events you have to react to, so it doesn't further compress the meta to an even smaller set of "optimal" options.
Why can't you just set a standing order of "make unit x" or "make unit x while we have gas until we get to 50 of them"? That's strategy. Having to tab back to a building and manually queue a couple of units every several seconds is just creating busywork for players
I agree completely. Related: have you considered turn based strategy games?
Personally I like the PDX style where it's "turn based" but the turns happen rapidly enough to feel like an RTS, and you can pause them at any time.
I feel like people dont understand, that the RT part in rts will always be the important part.
If you free up macro work, people will micro harder. WC3 got rid of most of the macro demand of SC and in consequence you will lose if you dont micro your units ik battle.
SC1 had build pipe lines and it wad still better to issue commands seperatley, because the player is more flexible.
A strategy is worthless if it csn be executed and the limits of execution create strategy.
Extraordinary pathing and all-select created the a-click deathball, that is one of the most boring ways to see, play and lose to.
Because too much of SC2's design catered to the progamer crowd that liked that kind of stuff. They made some things easier from an APM standpoint but intentionally added more things to make the have not APM intense.
They really bet wrong on how popular that approach would be.
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I like the concept of an RTS.
Deciding how to invest my resources, where to expand, when to attack, defend, or retreat, scouting and countering my opponent’s plans…
…but when it comes to the physical act of doing this stuff, it feels so horribly awkward that it’s like I’m fighting the UI more than my opponent.
Clicking and dragging selection boxes as if my troops are always in a rectangle formation? Right-clicking to attack but accidentally moving instead… And ugh, the endless series of tedious build queues.
The actual mechanics feel more like data entry — the kind with real bad RSI — than military leadership.
FYI, there are a handful of games that put unique spins on the genre out there. Most of the ones I can think of off the top of my head put you in control of a "cursor character" that's like a commander. It puts a speed limit on APM, which I think gets the genre back to focusing on strategy. There's also Northgard, which is like a cross between an RTS and a 4X game, and pieces of the map are tile-like, so rather than this unit moving to these coordinates, you're commanding a unit to move from this tile to the one next to it. Then there's the Total War series, where the battles are slow paced, and the macro level resources are handled in turn-based strategy.
Mount and Blade (Warband, WFAS, and Bannerlord) is another that I would say puts a unique spin on RTS. You are down on the ground with your troops and need to give orders like when to have certain troop groups attack, retreat, change formation, etc. You have the opportunity for your own skill as a fighter to matter, but once the battles reach a certain size, it becomes far more important to have a tactical advantage than to just be good at fighting yourself.
You may enjoy Zero-K more than most other RTS, at least. It's in the Total Annihilation style like Supreme Commander or Beyond All Reason. One of the ways it sets itself apart is with a diverse array of commands you can issue to your units so they can micro themselves. I haven't played much of it, so I can't give a ton of examples, but it has commands to do stuff attack while maintaining distance, compared to how StarCraft 2 forced you to learn to stutter step your Marines, manually alternating between moving and shooting.
It's also free and open source, based on the Spring engine, and available on Steam. It felt like it played well and was filled out well in terms of mechanics and units when I gave it a try a year or so ago, but I just haven't been playing any RTS lately.
RTS did go mainstream and it indeed turned into games very different from old school SC et al.
Plants vs zombies and LoL are the descendants of the genre and are or at least were, HUGE. Tower defense and moba are the two evolutionary paths that RTS took.
Tower defense is super mainstream, but moba, while huge isn’t really mainstream in my opinion. But one things for sure, they don’t have much in common with SC except the lineage.
moba feels like superfast mmorpg. the only reason i don't like it.
RTS games demand so much time and patience from the player to learn. What’s the proper build order? What’s the best unit composition? How many workers should get allocated for each resource? These things aren’t always obvious. And you don’t have time to read all descriptions because the time is ticking.
Not to mention good APM and battle tactics.
Shooters are much easier to understand: aim and shoot. You don’t need to follow YouTube guides to understand that.
Shooters are much easier to understand: aim and shoot. You don’t need to follow YouTube guides to understand that.
They demand so much time and patience. Whats the best weapon load out, where to move to be safe from fire, how to avoid enemy snipers, trying to figure out the excessive complexity of what WSAD does.
RTS games are much easier to understand. You drag a box around your units, and click the enemy and watch them blow up. You don't need to follow youtube guides to understand that.
My point is that there’s usually an easier level of entry for other types of games. You aim and shoot, and you get instant feedback if you succeeded or not. You don’t need to understand advanced meta to get this, although it can help.
For many RTS games it can all be dependent on how fast you expanded your economy, not on how you play your units. You can fail the entire game because of bad gameplay early.
You don't meed to have any advanced meta knowledge to play most games. There are options like playing against easier ai's or similarly skilled players.
Look at some Low Elo Legends from the game Age of Empires 2 on Youtube from T90. Most don't use advanced meta.
Heck, I as a kid never used advanced meta and had loads of fun.
The internet TELLS you that the latest meta is necessary and that you play suboptimally. But they're just optimizing the fun out of the game for you if you're not that kind of player.
This mentality is even worse in competetive shooters. People playing the latest "meta" even though they don't realize they don't even have the skill to pull that meta off. I wish the "internet" would just let players have fun in their own way. And that playing games "suboptimally" can still be just as fun and rewarding an experience.
/rant
I think the key difference is that it's "easier" to apply a meta to a RTS game. In shooters, the meta often involves quick reflex decisions, where to hide, where to shoot etc. This is hard, and requires practice. It also means there is a significant number of players not applying it, or doing so sub-optimally.
With RTS games, the metas are easier to apply. This means that, in human Vs human games, the newer players often get flattened. It also means that far more complex metas can be developed and applied.
Shooters tend to back load the difficulty curve. It's easy to get into them, and not do badly, but hard to do well. RTS games tend to front load the difficulty. You need to get over the initial hump to get "ok" with it. Once over the hump, the curve smooths off and you get good fairly rapidly.
One of the big differences between nerds and normals is that nerds enjoy punching through that wall. The difficulty is seen as a challenge, not an impediment. Most people want a faster feedback loop on the dopamine reward. FPS type games deliver that extremely well.
Important addition: the majority of people isnt equipped for this kind of game. Patience and ability to grasp this kind of thing is what makes the computer nerds the computer nerds.
Programming and sysadmin stuff isnt really popular either for that express reason.
As far as I'm concerned, the genre peaked with Battle for Middle Earth II.
God is that ever true. A remake that's true to the spirit of the original could have all my money
IMHO also the pinnacle of LOTR-related video games.
RTS games going mainstream are what killed my precious baby boy Command and Conquer.
God damn EA. Tiberium Wars was blegh, but what they did with Twilight.. Thats just molestation of a corpse.
I wish I could play a game where I could talk in real time instead of click, prepare attacks with my generals before the battle and settle a strategy, and where the fastest tabber-clicker is not the one who always wins.
Why? Because I’m getting old, that’s why, and anyone who ever played a competitive RTS knows exactly what it means.
Try the Total War games, especially the older (non-Warhammer) ones. Units take time to carry out actions, there is no point and not really a way to do insane actions per minute counts, as if a unit is engaged in melee, it can't really disengage without losses. There is also a great scale to the whole thing. I loved Shogun 2 for example.
I also like Eugen games like Wargame, Steel Division or Warno if a modern shooty type thing is more your game. Maybe try Regiments, that one is also good and maybe a bit less complex than Eugen titles.
Neither of these has base building, both are more of a "this is how many soldiers get for this battle, use them wisely" type game.
Thanks mate
You have just perfectly explained why I loved Shogun so much! It was much more forgiving to learn, and to then excel at. Very much a fun RTS. Atleast the original was very well made, I should try the second one.
Shogun 2 is arguably the best TW game imo.
Going to throw a shout out for Against The Storm.
It takes my favorite part of Age of Empires (setting up the dang base) and distills it into the perfect game.
Now if someone can figure out how to make the other half (the combat) really good.
If you miss that old style of game, that's fine, but there are probably tons of ways to morph the RTS genre that solves its old problems, finds it more success, and still scratches that itch. I'm quite fond of Cannon Brawl, and Tooth and Tail had its issues but was on the right track.
Same thing happened to Bethesda games, each is more popular than the last and each has lost more of its magic.
Star Wars: Empire at War is a classic with more nontraditional gameplay and light 4x elements (no diplomacy). The modding scene is rich too, with Thrawn's Revenge for the EU and multiple Clone Wars mods.
There was one on Xbox original where you talk using the headset. It's military with tanks, etc. Its like "unit 3 attack objective A... All units hold... Unit 3 patrol... It was awesome but the campaign was short and as far as I remember there was no skirmish/play with PC.
Tom Clancy’s End War?
Endwar! I remember yelling into the mic to attack because it never understood me lol
I think that is a separate genre of games now, I've seen a few different games like that.
I’m wondering if better AI could save this genre. I always hated the fragility of any soldiers I wasn’t actively controlling, having idle workers, workers trying to chop wood in the middle of enemies, etc.
If the computer can take your high level commands but also put out logical low level ones, and maybe also punish high APM, it might restore some of the moderate-paced feel of the game.
Why would you punish high apm? Thats punishing people for being better.
If you free up actions, good players will use the free space for other options.
If it only taked 50% skill to defend an expandion, people will double expand or expand and attack at the same time.
It’s a question of whether to reward a player that can see that the opponent is using rock, take a step back, start building paper, and send them out even if they take time doing it; versus a player that just super-optimizes building an army of rock to send against armies of paper, and give them the best chance of winning by perfectly kiting every attack on the field.
There’s certainly an argument that some groups would like the tournament of APM, but I think a lot of people didn’t bother with high level StarCraft because they saw Koreans clicking 15 times a second and figured they can’t keep up. It’s like how fighting games work to demonstrate they’re not rewarding button mashing.
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