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[Lukas]

Long time no post... hey there!

I'm full of anticipation towards the upcoming StarCraft II and I check for updates every now and then.
I always kinda played RTS-games (since I was like... 10... it started with Warcraft II, Age of Empires 2) and got to play them online early on. Still, I haven't looked at online-RTSes the way I look at them now, after having dived into the Starcraft-thing a bit.
I recently bought and played Starcraft, by the way. I strangely didn't "grow up with it" though. It certainly is one of the most appealing RTSes imo, although it's kinda stupid to see how people on battle.net are already way superior to you. So that's not so much fun. It also kinda lacks real matchmaking.

Now my actual point:
One thing that always really kept me from getting truly into WarcraftIII, C&C3, Dawn of War etc. was the fact that there always was this big hurdle every serious player had to jump over in order to actually play the games competitively.
Unlike most traditional board games (-> chess) wasn't simply this moment when you understood the rules and it was just up to your wit and experience.
I had the feeling that RTSes had rather 3 hurdles:

1 - Understand how you actually control the game (e.g. how to move units, how to attack, how to build structures and units etc.) -> rather small hurdle

2 - Getting to know what there actually is in the game (e.g. having seen and *kinda* understood all the units, buildings, skills, etc.) -> pretty large hurdle

3 - Getting down your reflexes, timing, clicking/cursor-speed and accuracy
       -> huge, open-ended hurdle.

In comparison the "learning-order" of chess:

1- Understanding how you actually play the game, how you win and loose, how units move and how capturing works. -> rather small hurdle, although getting used to it all may take a while. it certainly takes longer than learning how to move units in ... say Warcraft III.
2 - Learning different strategies, playstyles, openings. From other players, from a book or by trying it out. -> open-ended, huge process. Although you can become a pretty good player by just using your wit and playing a lot.


This all comes down to a final thing I noticed: Actually *playing* the games, understanding what is happening on the "board" and winning by applying the superior thinking starts at two different points with both kinds of games:
RTSes require you to complete the steps 1, 2 and 3 to be a player who overall understands the game and can handle the gameplay.
Chess requires you to complete step 1 and dive into 2 and you are already playing and a game against pretty much any player can be interesting for both sides.

I remember how I played StarCraft one evening, built my base, my exe, prepared everything, scouted and suddenly there was an invisible unit (-> Dark Templar) in my base and it slaughtered my workers and pretty much everything. To that point I didn't even know there was such a thing in the game. Of course I had to change my strategies from then on but such things still happen to me all the time... After 50-or-so games and some additional reading.

I guess WarCraft III accomplishes the greatest "overkill" in that discipline... with 4 factions, a dozen of units for each, with heros, different skills, techs, items you can collect, creeps you can fight, buildings you can construct. And this all gets multiplied by all the different maps that are being played.
---

What really bothered me about all this:
Lots of units with crazy abilities and items may be nice: But mostly for singleplayer when the sensation is the action on the screen and the story that accompanies it.
But it leads to a huge (imho) problem in multiplayer:
Unless you are already some uber-1337-micro-pr0-gam0r (ya, right) the competitive play always involves a lot of "well, I build a lot of tanks, and then I go into the base and kinda shoot and lets see what he does... oh he got a lot of archers, they destroy my tanks, whatever. oh cool, I got boots that make my hero run 10% faster... how the hell does this guy shoot lightning all of the sudden... guess it's just one of this crazy items you get randomly" etc...
It's almost impossible for 90-95% of the players to remove this major amount of randomness because there is simply so much in the game.

I felt like I wasn't dealing with a "real time *Strategy*-game" there... it was more like a "who spent more time learning all those unit-stats by heart"-game in which wit oftentimes plays a minor role. (except if both players are pretty much on the same level, of course.)
And this was the moment when I quit most of those games.
Why the heck should I learn all those stupid little "oh-that's cool"-units and abilities (that some guys in some office in California got up with) for hours on end instead of actually enjoying myself with useful knowledge and, in addition to that, having fun with games that are actually there to be fun?
If you play games you want to have fun and if you spend a lot of time with learning something really complex you would also want it to make all the effort that comes with it beneficial for yourself.

There seem to be only two ways to play games like Warcraft III then:
a.) having fun with the explosions and massive ogres running against each other.
b.) liking the compelling strategies the game contains.

While a.) removes it from any comparison to serious competitive games
         b.) takes hours of "learning the rules" before your own strategies actually
              have a use.

Further, I kinda noticed that the parts which make such games enjoyable for people who are interested in the explosions and ogres (a.) cover the parts that make them interesting for people who want to have a strategic/tactical challenge (b.).
All those many units, spells, effects, items etc. are designed to enable players to have fun with all the content they can play around with while the massive amount of game-elements that come with the content overcomplicate the strategies players want to deal with. (b.)

I don't know why competitively playing people actually appreciate this.
Is it because they like this kind of... nerd-sensation that makes them superior to newer players no matter how clever they are? (similar to Magic: The Gathering - players who already collected so many powerful cards that it is almost impossible for newer players to defeat them)
Or are games like StarCraft simply the only way to avoid having to deal with games like chess that are already so far explored that it is almost impossible to be truly supreme compared to many other players around the world?
Or are those players, who play the game for hundreds and thousands of hours still
 fascinated by the never-changing graphical effects and maybe even the bitmap-graphics of StarCraft? (not that I don't find them cool)
I especially doubt the latter.


Now I checked up StarCraft II and they already have 12 units (without the peon) for the protoss alone!
They haven't revealed everything yet but it seems like Blizzard takes StarCraft and adds lots of little thingies to it. It all seems to add up to this:



Instead of doing an actually innovative effort (like they kinda did with WoW) and removing all the elements that are not really neccesary they simply stack up new "cool" elements on top of each other.



I wonder why RTSes are actually designed that way and why people like them that much the way they are.
Why did people never try to design an RTS which is simple yet deep and complex at the same time? Is that to much of a challenge or would it simply be no fun for most gamers?

What do you think?

[PDF]

First of all, Blizzard never made an innovative game after Blackthorne, they just added things from different things together with humor.

The thing about RTS's is that they are real-time. That is, they require reflex too. Then, how can you eliminate the factor of reflex in RTS's? The fact is you cannot. You say that learning strategy in chess is different since you can enter to step 2. Someone who knows just Two Knights Game would easily defeat you if you don't know any openings or variants of the game. I don't see any difference between the step 3 of RTS's and step 2 of chess. To be competitive, you should practice.

Think of it; Before you know there is a thing such as Castling, can you really expect to play chess competitively? Before you know when to castle, you can't expect to win in certain games. This seems to be your problem with RTS's.

Now, for your question: "Simple, yet deep and complex" means that simple rules may lead players to make huge, strategical and clever choices which do not require any experience from the player somehow. I think this can be made only by eliminating the possibility of building new units or bases. I think Blitzkrieg games are good examples to that kind of a game. But even in Blitzkrieg, you see that most missions can be done by clever use of artillery. I almost never used my normal soldiers in Blitzkrieg games. So, eliminate soldiers and what remains is a game where both sides try to destroy each other's artillery by clever movement over the area. Now, if the multiplayer of this game gets popular, people will know where their opponents will most likely move their units to, and will defend&attack accordingly. Such a thing, therefore, seems impossible to accomplish.

However, you may try to remove this need for experience with a huge need of luck to do anything in the game. But then, people would hate it since it would require no strategy at all.

My conclusion is that strategy in real time games add the factor of experience with themselves.

[Core Xii]

What you've come to realize is the simple rule of "Keep It Simple, Stupid".

IMO the greatest games are those that are easy to learn, but difficult to master. Good example being Moonbase Commander, a turn-based strategy game that however requires hand-eye coordination and timing.

I've been developing an RTS for a long time, and the way I'm doing it is many different factions (playstyles), but only a handful of units each. This leaves plenty of room to select a grand strategy, but nicely narrows down the immediate tactical options, to present a more strategic experience.

[Nitro Crate]

Id just like to point out that Starcraft II has roughly the same amount of units as Starcraft for each race. They removed a lot of the less used units and replaced them with that they thought would be of more use. The new units might not be the most innovative thing in the world, but Starcraft has always been about the balance shared between three different factions.

For example, some of the newer changes (Protoss's unit warping) has been made to further distinguish the three races.

Edit: Also, each unit has a really distinguishing factor that makes it important, and furthers strategic gameplay.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, Blizzard deserves a bit more credit then you're giving it.

Edit[2]: Although I will admit that warcraft 3 is really overkill.
Edit[3]: However, there are some units that bug me in Starcraft 2. (Mothership, Stalker, Queen, Corruptor, Infested Terran) The terran race seems to be the only stable faction.

[Radnom]

I agree with the first post - that's why I play and love Command and Conquer. I don't like Starcraft, and Warcraft II was more fun for me than III.

I can't stand too many of those fiddly little "abilities" the characters have in Blizzard games. Frustrate the hell out of me.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

A few points (although I realize this post was not really "help me play better").

- Playing 50 games is not really nearly enough to learn how to play a game. Especially since each game lasts around 10 minutes. Imagine playing 50 games of chess -- you aren't going to get good at it in that time.

- Actually as RTS games go, Starcraft has very few units, so there's less to learn in that regard. Each is useful, although there are some imbalances. For my thoughts some of them, read my LJ entry: http://rinku.livejournal.com/1501437.html

- Starcraft, apart from every other RTS, is a professional sport. I'm not kidding, go look up Starcraft on YouTube, there are professional gamers who make hundreds of thousands of dollars playing it competitively, for a living, on live TV in South Korea, and the best players there have millions of fans, they have coaches. There are pro-leagues, tournaments, and so on.

- Because of that, the level of skill required to play SC against even an average SC player is much higher than any other RTS game. You literally have to play thousands of games before you can become as good as average.

- There are even training maps intended to improve your micro, which most people use to increase their skills quickly.

- There are also even programs which measure your APM (actions per minute); good players can have hundreds of actions per minute. One professional Zerg player, July, has the record I believe, with a peak of 800 actions per minute. That's about 13 actions per second. Think about how fast that is: 13 mouse clicks, hotkey uses, etc., every second.

- Another way to improve your SC play is to watch YouTube videos of progamers (not programmers, progamers, I confuse those two words sometimes) playing. Look for ones with English commentary: DiggitySC, Moletrap, VioleTAK, CholeraSC, and others make really excellent English commentaries of South Korean professional matches.

- Especially, look up Combat-EX's videos, and go through them all, there are only about 150, and after watching all of them, you'll really have a much better idea about how SC should be played.

- Finally, if you (or anyone else on these forums) ever want to play against me, IM or PM me, I play SC regularly, although I'm not very good (although I'd probably be better than someone who only played 50 games of course).

[Titch]

- Playing 50 games is not really nearly enough to learn how to play a game. Especially since each game lasts around 10 minutes. Imagine playing 50 games of chess -- you aren't going to get good at it in that time.

I got pretty good at chess after around twenty games. Not like I could play competitively, but so I wouldn't be guaranteed to loose against anyone I know who was playing seriously. It really doesn't nearly as long to get the brain click in chess where you start seeing zones of control and understanding why you loose. perhaps I'm some kind of super intelligent freak though 

Playing Starcraft online, I think after twenty games I discovered the I was loosing because of players using a 'zerg rush' and I would have to play for another 40 hours or so before I was a good enough player to stop it.

There is only two versions of the Zerg Rush move in chess (Fools Mate and Scholars Mate). Even the most inexperienced player is only going to be caught out by it once or perhaps twice. It doesn't take 20 hours of learning how to 'build fast enough' to block it. Just one or two games of people using it on you.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I see your point, but I think part of that is that most people are so bad at chess. Most people who say they know how to play it only learned the rules, and never actually bothered to learn how to play. With Starcraft it's different, most people who play it want to get good at it.

Chess is also a game known to many, many people, since it's easy to learn, and when you dilute it like that you're going to have a lower average skill level. So I don't think it's a difference in the games themselves, it's more of a difference in other factors.

I wouldn't say that stopping a zergling rush would take 40 hours to stop. There are a few ways to stop it very simply, if you're worried about it:

For terrans, make a bunker with a marine or two in it near your mineral line, or block your choke with a barracks and a supply depot (terrans are very good at blocking choke points).

For protoss, make two cannons at your choke or mineral line.

For zerg, make a sunken at your choke or mineral line.

The key point for all three of those is placement though -- it takes a little experience to know exactly where to place those things so that the zerglings can't get through. If you place the cannons, etc., in the wrong spot, the zerglings can just run right past it and reach your workers, so you need to put it in a spot that either stops them from getting there or which can reach your entire mineral line.

[Lukas]

Thanks for all your posts!

I already knew that StarCraft is a sport. 

Anyway, wouldn't wanna make this thread turn into a StarCraft-strategy-thread.

I just wonder why games like StarCraft need 12 different units and 10 different buildings per faction.

I mean... the ultimate, most simple example of "balancing" is the often-refered-to rock-paper-scissors.
It is, of course, clear that the problem with rock-paper-scissors is, that it is so simple that it actually just involves luck. (although it is interesting how players try to predict their opponents next "attack" by attempting to analyze their thinking)
So to make a game actually strategical and not entirely luck-based, RTSes are given extra-elements like additional units, micro-management, ressources, skills etc. etc.
But why do most games (Starcraft, Warcraft, even Command&Conquer a bit) try to get as far away from a clear rock-paper-scissors structure as they can? They seem to, at least.
They add "teching", all kinds of skills, multiple ressources, many more units. It all kinda results in another game.

Wouldn't it be possible to build an RTS which features a really simple Rock-Paper-Scissors foundation (concerning the units e.g.) and building from there?
I mean: Wouldn't it be interesting to start with an absolutely simple R/P/S-RTS with almost no additional elements (which of course wouldn't be too much fun/interesting) and adding simple yet effective elements from there. Trying to construct the simplest RTS possible? (if that is possible)

To give you a raw idea:
The foundation features:
- Plain Field
- No Ressources
- One building
- 3 Units (A, B, C) with clear rock-paper-scissors-characteristics (meaning: A has absolutely no chance against B, B has no chance against C, C has no chance against A)
- The building can produce the 3 Units without needing any ressources or building-time.
- The units can move and attack. (other units and buildings)
- The one player who first destroys the enemy building (by attacking it one (totally abstract) or for a certain time) wins.

I imagine this game to be not so much fun even though it would feature some micro there. Still, it would mostly be a matter of luck.

But from there you could carefully add really simple yet effective elements like:
Obstacles on the field.
Ressources on the field that can be collected by units (instead of fighting) which are needed to build more units.
etc. etc. etc.


Note, that pretty much every RTS and even chess developed from wargames, tabletop-games that were made to simulate actual battles. The rules of such games (see Warhammer, Warhammer40k) are oftentimes incredibly detailed and complex.
The more games steered away from the realistic, complex rules the more they gained in popularity.
Chess is already incredibly abstract, even though it kept some remains that blend in with the rather abstract game-theory.("horses, that jump over units", "elefants, that charge and roll over other fighters")
Starcraft and Warcraft feature strange proportions (building-unit-sizes!) and I don't think a whole army can be built simply with gold and wood.
I think all this indicated that we should try to approach the RTS-design from the abstract side, not from the realistic one.

Anyway, I wonder what kind of game would turn out of such an experiment.

(Fun detail: If the experiment turned out fittingly, one could come up with a really simple yet deep "wit-only"-RTS by building an algorithm that creates simple (but always kinda working and interesting) RTS-rules for every new round that is played. The rules should all be really simple and understandable in a matter of seconds. They would have to be explained before every match and the players would have to adapt to the rules every time.)


By the way: We are of course comparing chess and StarCraft because they both require strategy, thinking, experience and they both simulate two armies fighting against each other. Still, from a game-design standpoint they are actually pretty different games. Not only because the one is real-time and the other is turn-based.
Things like buildings and economy are huge in RTSes and distinguish them from games like chess. Even if the positioning of units in chess kinda ressembles teching a bit, it is a really different gaming that could, at the very most be compared to the micromanagement-aspect in StarCraft etc.
By the way 2: Maybe the (great!) game of Go ressembles RTSes a bit more. (strangely, Koreans are similarly succesful in Go than they are in StarCraft and WarCraft3! and in both cases, the games they excel in were developed by different cultures )


Anyway, I'm interested in what thoughts you guys come up with. So keep it going, guys!


BaronCid

[battlerager]

Actually, I usually hate strategy games that employ a "Rock Paper Scissors" formula somehow.

It makes it way easier to "bet on the wrong horse".

Also, the point of having all those special unit abilities and lots of diverse units is to increase the amount of possible strategies and different maneuvers.

I agree that Warcraft was pretty overkill, but I'd rather play a "complicated" game that gives me lots of different possible strategic options than a game which boils down to "damn, should have built more of 'C' and less of 'B'".


Just my 2 cent. 

[Tanner]

the thing i like about multiwinia is that there aren't any units, really.
anything special is dropped by crates from the sky. kind of like mariokart. sure, rubberbanding abounds, but that means that even inexperienced (like me) players can win a few games, as long as they grasp the (very) basic mechanics.

[Nitro Crate]

the problem with a clear rps system like that is, it basically reduces to unit massing. Ok the guy has a lot of unit B, well in that case ill get a lot of unit A. Oh wait he's spamming C to counter my A now, ok in that case ill spam B.

Then probably the most "advanced" strategy you could get out of that would be to keep a ratio of 1:1:1 for each unit so you can hold off long enough while you're spamming the counter unit.

So it's really important to stray away from rps as much as possible. That said though, I really have to agree when you say that you don't need like 12 to whatever amount of different buildings and units. (Thing is though, the players might get bored if it's just a small amount of units to play around with)

Edit: this is getting my juices boilin to attempt an "innovative rts".

[brog]

If you want to create the simplest RTS possible and reduce the fiddly micromanagement, you need to go with a different interface from Starcraft/Warcraft/etc.  Once you get out of "you build a base and some different kinds of unit and click to select them and give them orders" there are lots of directions you can go in to make a more streamlined RTS game.
Now, I know that for some people, this interface is what they mean by RTS.  I have a game in development which, when I call it an RTS people who've seen it say "No.. that's not an RTS, don't be silly.  Ok, technically maybe but you know that that's not what people mean when they say RTS.  When games look like that we call them puzzle games."
At which point i fucking rip their throats out because its not a fucknig puzzle game your main focus is not on solving puzzle how does it look like puzle you are controlling territory and managing resources and attackING THE ENEMY MURDER DEATH KILLL MURDER MU pant pant

ok
ok
I'm alright now.

So, consider Multiwinia.  You're still controlling large armies from above, but you rarely ever select individual units.  There's mostly just one unit type, and you command it in large groups or indirectly by placing flags that send them off in some direction.  Quite simple, but still has plenty of depth.  (Or, it would if the crate drops weren't so imbalanced that the game more often comes down to who got more good crates and who opened up an ant's nest next to their base.)

Gate 88.  Has base building and resources and so on, but you directly control a single ship instead of managing things from above.  There are a few types of buildings and turrets, and two other types of ship which are controlled indirectly by setting a marker with your main ship.  It's still clearly an RTS, but because your control is restricted to one ship, you can only be in one place at a time and it takes a certain amount of time to get somewhere else, and it becomes a strategic decision where to move to rather than being able to flick anywhere on the map as fast as you can click.  So fast clicking and micro have less effect.  Unfortunately the interface is not very friendly so there's still a bit of learning to do, there's room for improvement there, but I think it's a step in the direction you wanted.

Liquid War.  Now we're getting well out of the realms of what some people would call RTS.  You're controlling a large army of particles in a very indirect manner - you just have one cursor that they all move towards.  The strategy still has depth, but it's more simple and pure.  You just focus on surrounding the enemy and not being surrounded yourself.

These are just some directions RTS games have gone in.  You can probably think of more possibilities that haven't been tried yet.  Just free yourself from the assumption that it's about building different kinds of unit.

[jeb]

Hello

I'm currently writing an article about RTS game design. I'm still working on it, but this is what I've posted so far:

http://www.oxeyegames.com/category/rts-design/

As I write in the introduction, please note that it's more important to make a game that you like, than one which fits certain rules. And what you like is a matter of taste.

[Lukas]

Hi!
Thanks brog, Multiwinia, Gate88 and Liquid Wars seem to be pretty interesting games, although all pretty "trippy". Gonna check them out when I have some additional time!

Oh by the way... One question overall: are my posts too long? Or do you people actually try to read through them somehow? Just tell me and I'll try to write more compact posts.

the problem with a clear rps system like that is, it basically reduces to unit massing. Ok the guy has a lot of unit B, well in that case ill get a lot of unit A. Oh wait he's spamming C to counter my A now, ok in that case ill spam B.

Yeah, exactly!

And that's why I wrote:

I imagine this game to be not so much fun even though it would feature some micro there. Still, it would mostly be a matter of luck.

I was only talking about the "base" from which you'd move - that means "move away from the RPS"

Actually, I usually hate strategy games that employ a "Rock Paper Scissors" formula somehow.

It makes it way easier to "bet on the wrong horse".

Also, the point of having all those special unit abilities and lots of diverse units is to increase the amount of possible strategies and different maneuvers.

...
 I'd rather play a "complicated" game that gives me lots of different possible strategic options than a game which boils down to "damn, should have built more of 'C' and less of 'B'".

Yeah, true! Such a game would certainly be boring if you really just had the blank RPS-mechanics.

So it's really important to stray away from rps as much as possible.

I think that this is questionable. Here's why:
The great thing about RPS is that it is so absolutely clear. I see it as kind of the... equilateral triangle of game design. :D
It is a system that has no flaws or gaps. It can be expanded (to RockPaperScissorsDynamite, for example) but every new layer makes it more complicated for the player to see through the logic rapidly.
By the way, RPS isn't all luck: www.worldrps.com check "Gambit Play" e.g.

Adding elements to the RPS-principle carefully might create a pretty interesting game!
You simply have to add things that prevent players from "pumping out some units, sending them against each other and the one with the right, though random mix wins".

Imagine you have archers (A), light-armored spearmen (B)) and shield-wielding swordsmen (B).
A beats B, B beats C, C beats A of course. That's the basic RPS.
But the actual mechanic can be made expandable by actually adding things like ranges.
In "normal" RPS there isn't such a thing. The relations are given, A simply beats B.
Now if you say "The archers can shoot over distances before the spearmen can reach them, the spearmen can pierce through the swordmen's defenses before the swordsmen can slash them and the swordmen aren't affected by arrows because the block most of them off with their shields BUT basically any unit has the same attack and defense so basically pretty much every unit can kill the others right away under the "right" circumstances." you don't simply have RPS. This stacks up an additional, still simple but powerful layer of complexity onto your RPS.

A player who builts 1/3 archers 1/3 spearmen and 1/3 swordsmen won't win if he lets the spearmen stay in range, doesn't draw back the archers and fails to flank with his swordsmen.

This would of course still be a pretty shallow game!

But we can still add another simple but effective layer to the game!

Imagine we add small boulders and cliffs to the map (instead of a plain). This would again make the game way deeper without forcing the player to learn dozens of unit-stats and skills by heart. Archers on high-ground aren't as easy to flank and kill, spearmen behind rocks aren't as easy to take out from range and swordsmen (who maybe should be slightly faster than spearmen) would require some additional steering (around the rocks, ambushing high-ground-archers and enclosing them on the cliff, for example).
This would already make for a pretty complex yet easy-to-learn game.

You can stack up several additional element-levels and I'm pretty sure the complicated-complex ratio will soon beat Warcraft3 if you do it right. The model I constructed here in 10 minutes doesn't even involve buildings or ressources!

Another small example: I recently experimented with a thought on a possible RTS-fraction a bit and what came out was pretty (imo) interesting/seemingly deep and yet simple:
The player has an indistructible base which can pump out different "Wisp"-unit. They cost nothing but the base has a certain cooldown-counter when spawning them.
There is one Wisp-type for every fighting-unit type in the game plus a "Prism"-wisp (I'm using Warcraft/Starcraft-Terms to make it easier to understand). Wisps can transform into buildings for free. The Prism-wisp anywhere, the other wisps only near a Prism. The Prism simply enables wisps to transform into buildings near it. The other buildings don't get destroyed or "offline" in case their prism gets destroyed, that doesn't affect them. So the other buildings all are production-buildings for the 5 different unit-types:
a.) Swordsmen (melee)
b.) sharp-shooters
c.) mages
d.) Walking Explosion Barrels
e.) Canon-Helicopters (AoE-damage)

The production-buildings pump the units out automatically and for free, (depending on the unit)there is a certain interval, though.

Now every unit is designed to be simple but (in the right hands) powerful.
a.) The Swordsmen are pretty enduring and have some attacking power, not too much though.
      They are great for blocking off enemy-units.
      The most remarkable feature is a "blink" abilit which lets them quickly teleport themselves over short distances. The ability    
      several minutes of cooldown, though. This way they can "jump" out of danger (over cliffs), jump into ranged-units and devastte them (if they are rather close to the melee-units) or simply chase enemy units more effectively.

b.) The sharp-shooters have a rather small viewrange, a really low hit-probability (like 10%) and they attack rather slowly, still, the damage they deal is very high and can take out most units immediately. Their interesting mechanic is that they have a really long firing-range. Twice as long as their view-range. This means that sharp-shooters are just really effective if you use them in combination with a "scope"-unit that sees the enemy. Once the enemy is out of the fog-of-war, sharp-shooters can attack them over very long ranges. They are pretty easy to kill, though.

c.) The mages can neither attack nor do they have real defenses. They are dead after one succesful blow of any unit or simply some splash-damage from AoE-attacks. Their cool feature: They make every unit in a certain radius around them invisible. This means that if you combine 2 or more mages you can totally cloak your entire army. Mages are pretty rare though, since their building-rate is very low. Taking out mages is pretty easy once you spotted a hidden enemy force. Some AoE-shots into the right area pretty much destroy mages. So cloaking is not too much of an advantage.

d.) The walking explosion barrels are units that cant attack. They have almost no "hitpoints" (1, maybe) and if they die, the detonate in a pretty much devastating AoE-explosion. They aren't too numerous due to their low production-ratio/speed.
A funny thing about those explosion barrels is, that they can also damage their own allies. So if the enemy shoots them in the right moment, they go off pretty quick (chain-reactions!).
To defend your own units/buildings against those barrels it's important to destroy/shoot them before the enemy can steer them near your own unites and "launch" them by attacking them with own units.

e.) the Flying mortars fly really low, but are still not attackable by melee-units. They have almost no shields and can be destroyed quickly by sharp-shooters, other flying units (well, mortars) and exploding barrels.
They can drop exploding bomb-shells (or shoot them against flying targets). Those attacks have a really huge reloading-time  but deal impressive AoE-damage to ground-targets.

I wasn't able to try this design out anyhow but I kinda think that this is a possible example of a really simple, yet interesting and rather deep RTS-design.

What do you guys think?


btw: Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate what Blizzard does and I always found it really cool! I'm by no means not-excited ( ) about Starcraft II!

[Titch]

In the field of simple the get into strategy games, I suggest trying Advanced Wars. Starts with a RPS-esq system and builds upwards. It's not real time, but has a more of a real time fast paced 'feel' to it compared to a lot of other turn based ones.

For intensely simple. Nanowar and Dyson. It's pure unit/time balancing. No RPS, just looking at the number of units you have and if they will be enough to overwhelm the enemy given that the enemy will have produced more units in the time it takes to reach them. Dyson is a little more complex than Nanowar, but not overly so.

[Matt Thorson]

I would compare modern RTS's to speed-RPS.

Speed-Rock-Paper-Scissors is RPS played usually best of 5 or 7, where you have to instantly start the next match when the previous one ends.  Therefore the outcome of the first match is usually random (barring any previous intel by the players on favored selections of their enemy), and then it becomes a battle of pattern detection.  When you play that quickly, most people aren't capable of really randomizing their choices, and will fall into patterns (the worst being rock - rock - rock - rock - etc. :D ).  Plus, avoiding a pattern in RPS is a pattern in itself since there are only 3 choices. 

Of course RTSs are much more complex.  But that need for decisiveness and thinking in patterns and counters is there.  What RTSs add is the need for "micro" ie: how good are you at manipulating the interface? Which, personally, is a turn-off because RTS interfaces are not conducive to that fiddly kind of individual unit manipulation and I can't be bothered to learn it properly (which is why I love Rise of Nations as it downplays that element).

[mildmojo]

I think the first post nails one of the unsolvable problems with modern online gaming: skill differential.  I love Starcraft, but I typically only play co-op against CPU opponents.  Playing against human adversaries is an exercise in frustration for me.  Everyone's looking to play with people at a similar level, so if you can't keep up, you get to learn all sorts of new obscenities from your opponents *and* your teammates.  Totally not worth it to me.

That negative experience extends to most online games.  Through lack of devotion, I'm the sort of gamer who's never going to get beyond the 60-80% level in any given game when compared to the global player base.  I had a great time playing Savage, Ground Control 2, C&C Generals, and Warhammer with friends, but I can't imagine trying them online.  (Actually, I did try Savage, and was completely outplayed)

Starcraft's zerg rush is a tough problem for the other two races.  You have to be really on top of your game as Protoss to get the 450 minerals (more than the cost of a new base) for your first photon cannon before the zerg arrive.  If you're Terran and you have more than one base entrance, I'm not sure what the strategy is.  Plug one entrance with supply depots and get a barracks up quick?

My favorite RTS experience is trying out a new game with a bunch of friends.  I think that BaronCid's idea of changing the rules every round is great; if there was enough variability there, maybe it would work.

[brog]

I think the skill-differential problem is actually a huge concern for multiplayer indie games.
With games from big publishers, there's a lot of hype beforehand and lots of people buy it on release and start playing immediately.  Indie games grow more slowly, usually spreading by word of mouth, so this problem kicks in already when you only have a few people playing.

There's also the problem of not having enough players for it to be easy to find a game.  I guess these are why there aren't so many multiplayer indie games.

Any ideas how to solve this?  You could reduce the skill ceiling of the game, but that's shooting yourself in the foot because that's what keeps a hardcore community playing a game forever.

[Alevice]

This is where I find something like the battle.net ladder quite handy.