Creating less sucky games: What is the ideal
RTS game?
Good Game Design
by Brad Wardell
What happened to all the good Real Time Strategy games (RTS)
out there? Someone at some point decided that RTS games had
to have 3D graphics in them. And by doing that, the bar was
so raised that only a few companies bothered to keep making
them. Why? Because RTS games don’t generally sell as well
as one might think — not enough, anyway, to spend millions
of dollars on. That is, unless you’re Blizzard or Westwood
with franchises.
So where does that leave us? For most players, what we wish
we could do is take over the bodies of the guys at Westwood
and Blizzard and have them combine some of their concepts
together along with ideas from Total Annihilation into the
mega game. But that’s not going to happen. And in fact, looking
at where those two companies are going in their designs, the
RTS genre is not likely to be making any great leaps forward
(though I have high hopes on Empire Earth). But let’s say
we, the gamers, got to make a game. Remember last article
we talked about being wary of adding too many elements in,
so let’s stick to the basics. What do we want in our perfect
RTS game?
1) We want there to be multiple resources. (Note to Blizzard:
Don’t debate it.) There should be at least two different resources
in the game, but no more than four with only two common ones
required to make most of the units.
2) Rock-Paper-Scissors? No. Throw that out as an absolute.
You do not want to have Unit A able to hit Unit B with Unit
B having no chance at doing anything back. Nothing is more
frustrating to a gamer than having a ton of Unit Bs that are
reasonably good units but have them all liable to be killed
by a single Cheap unit A. Even Patton could shoot down a helicopter
with a machine gun if he had to if it was hanging around long
enough. Ten thousand guys with machine guns could bring down
an airplane probably.
3) Combined arms. Most RTSs end up just matter of swarming
the other guy. The R-P-S design is meant to take that away
but it tends to make it worse. Total Annihilation got it right.
A good attack used several different types of units. [The
"R-P-S" that Brad refers to is the "roleplaying
strategy" concept Blizzard announced for Warcraft 3 -
ed.]
4) Unlimited unit/building queuing. I should be able to tell
my factory to build 10 tanks, five jeeps, 10 infantry, and
five missile trucks and then direct the manufactured units
to go to point A. Similarly, if I have a unit that builds
buildings, I should be able to direct him to points A, B,
and C where he is assigned to build a factory, a look out
tower, and a hospital (or whatever). And he’ll do it. A good
RTS should not be about totally micromanaging the units; it
should be a balance between tactics and logistics. Babysitting
factories and construction units should not be part of “the
strategy”.
5) You should be able to combine the Starcraft/TA/AOE style
of being able to build anywhere with the C&C design of only
being able to build in specific spots. How? Well, have a type
of building, like a power plant, that one has to build and
require that buildings be within a certain distance of it.
If the power plant is destroyed, the buildings go on battery
power for awhile and then eventually will run out of power
if the plant isn’t repaired. This combines both concepts.
I can’t just build a barracks right outside your line of sight
without first building that power plant and it’s at least
a bit realistic but at the same time I’m not stuck having
to have “a single base” like you tend to have in C&C (in RA2
there is some improvement but it’s still weird having things
built in thin air and be able to plop them down when built).
Cont'd
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