Talk:Real-time strategy

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Real-time strategy article.

Contents

[edit] Article status

The article was recently given a "B" rating on the assesment scale, this in a mass-edit to move all (most?) game genre articles into the quality roster. All added articles were given a status of "B", i.e. the assesment is a stub until concensus is reached. I changed the status to "GA" becase I consider the article to provide a quite complete treatment and exhaustive discussion of the subject. More editing is needed however, especially second half of article. Mikademus 10:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Early RTS games

Many, many versions ago the history header contained mentions of many, many games wholly unrelated to the RTS genre and its development. One of these was Rescue Raiders, which is a sidescrolling Choplifter helicopter game. It was reinserted today by an anonymous editor, making claims that it was an early RTS. I removed it. To avoid original research, edits from personal love and POV I suggest we watch carefully which titles are added to the history section. Mikademus 19:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Any discussion of RTS history is incomplete without mentioning Empire. While there are several games with that name, one group in particular was a text-based RTS that had dozens of players at a time in a sophisticated military-economic game. Since this game was developed in the 70's (a number of years before any other game mentioned in the article), had elaborate clients (eg, WinACE or pei (Perl Empire Interface)), open source, and complex defenses (eg, units could patrol, attack units that got within a set range, etc). While games were easily configurable for a fixed level of technology, the usual game started with simple iron age units and steadily progressed through modern units including nuclear weapons. The goal generally was elimination of all other players.
The game often was played over a month or two. So players generally had an amount of "move" that they could use to perform tasks. Individual units had inherent move as well. So this game had some characteristics similar to turn-based games as well though the degree of this depended on how the game was configured.
Modern RTS games still fail to achieve some of the feats achieved in this game. For example, some of the clients were powerful enough that you could run complex programs (eg, you could run Perl code in pei) in them. And as I mentioned, the game was highly configurable. One version, the "blitz" games were intended to be played over 24 hours and traditionally used to test tactics and programs. Much of the economic aspects, particularly food, were eliminated for these short games. -- KarlHallowell 05:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds interesting. I failed to understand whether the game was in real-time (and if so, several months of playing, that's some real real-time for you!) or turn-based, or some mix? Since you seem to know the game couldn't you write a few short lines about how and why it is importants for RTS games, or, if it hasn't impacted for formation of the RTS genre, why it is interesting historically, and we can see how it can be incorporated into the article. Perhaps you could write an entire article about the game? It sounds interesting enough to warrant one. Mikademus 08:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
The answer is a bit of both. There was a certain allotment of "move" that one could use to issue orders and move troops and resources around. But this move was replenished at a regular rate. A common approach was to replenish it all once a day. This resulted in turn-like behavior especially since one could use up all their move before the update and then use up the new move right afterwards. That was great for surprise attacks. Other games were configured to replenish move in a more gradual way which resulted in more continuous action.
One of the things I've neglected, is that it gradually grew in capabilities over the years. There are a number of forks of the original code. So it's possible that it started more turn-based like and gradually grew more RTS-like in later years. But as I understand it, the fact that one could play at any time and that the game was multiplayer were features from the begining. The history of this game should be well documented in the rec.games.empire newsgroup which is archived by Google. -- KarlHallowell 01:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reworked definition and history sections

The section on the early history of RTS games was somewhat confused. The first part consisted of claims for a bunch of games to be "early RTS titles" though most of these did not fulfill almost any of the core aspects of "true" RTS games (see definition) and were moved to a sub-section (titles claimed to be early RTS games) for your review. The other part were basically a boatload of namedropping, RTS games "following Dune II", a list doing no-one any good. I pruned this to a core set of titles instrumental to shaping the established RTS definition. I also reworked the initial defintion of RTS games. Mikademus 12:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Even more refurbishing of the same sections. Some rephrasings of the initial definition, added a section on "strategic games in real-time != real-time strategy games". Reworked the history section heavily: improved the initial discussion in the "in the beginning" sub-section, killed the paragraph on non-RTS games, restructured the discussion about Dune II to reduce redundancy and avoid the "enumeration of RTS titles" the article has been critisised for. Mikademus 18:11, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The article as it is right now is too indulgent, and its just a lenghty fancruft read. Articles are supposed to be serious and informative, not like something one would read off from a magazine. I suggest you go to a library and look for an actual encyclopedia, they arent so big in either adjectives or assumptions, their point is to inform, not to entertain.
The history part has all the mistakes that amateur writers do here in wikipedia, this is: unnecesary adjetives, baseless assumptions, abuse of quoting and lenght, the lack of any real structure and of course my all time favorite amateur mistake: Catchy titles to divide the already lenghty story.
If an article is important, or if for you is important, you dont need to make it lenghtier just to prove everyone that it is important, you dont need to try to stack as much information into an incoherent listing mixed with prose, you have to tell whats important, not every little detail. Optimazation of information, not quantity of it, is what we need here, thats the one mistake of all fan-related articles (from star wars to war of the worlds). I suggest you look into it again.

[edit] New section to history header

Some of the discussion below has revolved around which was the "first" RTS, the "first true" RTS etc. Some have expressed dismay over certain (personal favorite or perceived as particularly important) titles not having been treated or mentioned. Though of historical interest and certainly deserving the treatment it receives in the article I think that focusing on the historical/definitional aspects of RTS misses some important points, namely treating the games that have shaped the public awareness of the genre. I have therefore Changed the "brief history" header to just "History" and added a section on Westwood and Blizzard's games between 1992--1998, which I argue more than other (previous and contemporary) titles formed the popular definition of RTS games, and which all later RTS titles still are understood and measured against. Mikademus 09:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks good so far. I'll holler if I see problems. ⇒ SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 09:37, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

To complete the historical dicussion I also added a "Later additions to the RTS genre" section under history. While I think that I've gotten the main point across -that few genuine innovations have been introduced to the genre since 1995- the section could perhaps be fleshed out, examples added and peer reviewed for factual flaws. Mikademus 14:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] RTS ?= War game

this is heavily leaning toward the wargame end. RTS also includes all the Sim Games, such as Sim City, Railroad Tycoon, Dungeon Keeper, Populous etc. --Tarquin 17:30 Jan 8, 2003 (UTC)

I thought they were in a different genre: god game. --Martin 23:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Correct. None of the above games are RTS games.


[edit] POV on popularity and skill

Because of the generally faster-paced nature (and the usually shallower learning curve), RTS games have exceeded the popularity of conventional turn based games. Many serious strategy gamers regard RTS games as "cheap imitations" of turn-based games because of the tendency of RTS games to devolve into "clickfests", in which the player who is faster with the mouse generally wins, because they can give orders to their units at a faster rate. Also, the faster pace masks the generally poor AI of the computer.

Above=disguised POV. The many professional players of StarCraft, for example, are unlikely to be pleased at being deemed non-serious... --Martin 23:34, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

(long overdue response): Agreed. I changed it to say "traditional" instead, maybe "turn-based strategy gamers" would be even better. Also, I clarified that "conventional turn based games" was probably referring to computer/video strategy games, not including board games. --Mrwojo 21:18, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Blinkered historical perspective

It never ceases to amaze me how people think this or that genre of game began in their time. In a nutshell: Herzog Zwei isn't even _close_ to the first real-time strategy game. The Ancient Art of War from Broderbund, released in 1984, is generally considered to be the first, although it is possible that there was an earlier title on the Intellivision or Colecovision consoles.

I would contest that Star Raiders, a cartridge game for the Atari 400/800 computers and the 2600 VCS, is probably the first one of the "real time" games.

Currently, Stonkers is listed as first (from 1983). I've had a shot of it and its plainly a RTS game. Any further info on Star Raiders and what year it was released? --Zagrebo 20:26, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Star Raiders doesn't involve unit building, base building, or control of multiple units, so you'd be very hard pressed to convince anyone that it was an RTS. There's strategic movement (not a feature of most RTSes) -- I can't remember if that aspect is real-time or turn-based -- alternating with a real-time first-person space shooter arcade game. That makes it more similar to games like Archon and Star Control, neither of which is generally considered RTS. Kaleja 18:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Macro" examples

Another example of macro based games would be the Total Annihilation Series. They gave the idea of almost endless resources. Create as many units as your PC can handle :)

As I understand the distinction is not really the number of units, but the control mechanism. Either you control individual units (soldiers, vehicles) by basically grabbing them by a selection box or you control groups (that are actually called units in real life - each containing many individual soldiers) by clicking on them. Total Annihilation (or the original C&C) had a lot of units, but still the number was unrealistically small (tens, at most hundreds, of soldiers in an army). Macro games (Total War series being the best and most prominent example have thousands and will have tens of thousands in the near future) units. --Paranoid 11:50, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
That's not really the way the term is used in practice. "Macro" games are generally defined as having large numbers of units and on the economic side of the game being more developed and important compared to "Micro" games. TA is quite a macro-oriented game. In fact it might be better to replace the macro and micro sections with the description of the spectrum from very macro-oriented to very micro-oriented. I would actually considered R:TW to be a 100% micro oriented RTS because the economics all occurs in the turn-based part. Micro basically means "unit control" and macro basically means "economic production". --ShardPhoenix 08:34, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] RTS innovations list

  • Rescue Raiders
    • Fully real-time
    • Resource management
    • Multiple units
  • Herzog Zwei
    • Simultaneous 2-player
    • Complex animation for units during combat
  • Dune
    • Resource gathering
    • Direct control of units (HZ & AoW used AI &/r statistical comparisons)
  • Stronghold (1993 game)
    • First 3D RTS (actually pseudo-3D display)
  • War Craft
    • Network & Internet play, head-to-head & cooperative
    • Heroes
  • Star Craft
    • Large unit maximum (200)
    • 3D rendering of units
    • 3 comparatively different armies with noticibly different units
    • Zerg Rush
    • Professional RTS
    • Bunkers
  • Age Of Empires
    • Larger max
    • Very Historically Accurate Units
    • Actual 3D units (but in a 2-D playing environment)
    • Worker Bell (calling all non-combatants to "man their battlestations")
    • Greater Economic Concerns (tributes & trades)
    • Ages (Maybe Cossacks beat tho?)

What else we got? --Duemellon 18:40, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Rise of Nations
    • Territory
    • Best Adaptation of Diplomacy to Date
  • Empire Earth
    • Multiple Epocs
AOE didn't have 3D units - they were prerendered, like in SC. I think that TA might have been the first to have 3D units. --Paranoid 19:39, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Second that, neither AOE nor Starcraft had 3D units. Those are sprites, a bunch of animated 2D pictures moving around. --64.238.49.65 19:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Added Stronghold 1993 Coll7 22:19, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Added EE, RoN, and one thing to AoE. Remove if disagree with.

[edit] 2 Graphics Paragraphs

There was one 2D/3D graphics paragraph in the main body and another in the Graphics section, each overlapping the other in text, but citing different examples. I took a crack at combining them under the Graphics section, and kept all games referenced in either paragraph. See if you think the resulting paragraph is clear. --Coll7 02:43, 28 August 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Command and Conquer

I can't beleive C&C isn't mentioned here. While I can't think off the top of my head of any drastically new gameplay aspects it introduced, the genre is certainly defined by C&C just as much as it is by AoE and the Blizzard "-craft" games. Speaking of which, I added Starcraft II (?) to the list of future games because, though Blizzard has said they have no immediate plans to make a Starcraft II, they intend to return to that world in the future (and nobody honestly beleives that by this they meant Ghost), and what's more, Starcraft II must be one of the most desired RTS games that may possibly come out. If anybody disagrees with me, feel free to revert, I'm really not too passionate about it.

But C&C deserves a mention on this page. Zelmerszoetrop 22:52, 11 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Rescue Raiders?

isn't it worth mentioning Rescue Raiders in here. Sure, it was single player only, but it did allow for a real-time creation of multiple units (and stuck you with the choplifter god character). Great game, that.


[edit] Game reviews?

[edit] The Outforce

This game, by o3 games, had a fully 3D gamefield, but gameplay was 2 dimensional. This solved the problem of units getting in each others way because they could "stack" and move above or below one another. The POV of the field is rotatable 360 degrees, tiltable from directly overhead to about 70 degrees and can be zoomed out to almost the whole map and zoomed in until the smallest unit nearly fills the entire screen.

Anything on the field could be destroyed, even planets, if enough firepower was applied. (Time to destroy a planet was approximately 4 to 6 hours, and the explosion could destroy most of the field.) Apply enough firepower and no barrier could stand in a players way, but of course the new hole would also provide a path for the enemy.

The construction units can be directed to repair buildings or other units. They can also be set to guard buildings or other units. In guard mode, they'll automatically repair the building or unit and will speed up construction by buildings with that ability. Any number of construction units may be set to construct, repair or guard. Putting a dozen construction units on guard on one building will make constructing new ships very fast.

Unit construction can be queued. Anything a building can construct may be queued in any order in any numbers. Want 5 small fighters followed by 2 large battleships followed by one construction unit? No problem. Want that pattern repeated to infinity, or until the player stops it? Can do! Each unit construction building may have a rally point set for the units to move to as they're released.

Construction units can also have their orders queued with what and where to build. Build 6 solar plants *here* then a fusion plant *there* followed by three laser turrets elsewhere then return to guard a construction building.

A unique feature of this game was the Towship, which could be used to move buildings, weapons turrets, radars and walls around. Different items had different mass so large buildings took more than one Towship to move. Careful manuvering could be used to "slingshot" weapons turrets and large bombs into enemy defenses.

Another feature of this game was unlimited group sizes. If you wanted to have 221 ships in a group, no problem. The way this game burnt through the units, a player _needed_ large groups to defeat a well protected base.

The multiplayer maps provided are not limited to the number of players shown. Up to the maximum number of players may be selected for any map. The game will locate the "extra" players somewhere, hopefully not right next door to an enemy player. This feature can be used to "shake up" the typical "one path" attack the AI tends to slip into.

The AI in The Outforce is fairly decent. Units have good pathfinding and rarely get stuck. The AI will often find and take advantage of holes a player leaves in defenses, especially in some of the campaign maps.

The unfortunate thing about an otherwise good game was o3 games turned over the rights to the publisher. In turn, the publisher pushed for an early release. The result was a game with only a campaign for the Terrans and all three races units varying only in graphics, effects and audio. However, it's still a good and different game for multiple human players.

There is a bug when playing VS an AI opponent. If the AI is at the "bottom" of the map, units can get stuck inside construction buildings that are built or get moved too close to that edge of the map. The unit stuck inside will attack enemy units that get close enough but unless it gets destroyed or something moves the building away from the edge, that building is out of action. Human players on the bottom edge are advised to not build too close to the edge or use towships to move buildings pushed against the edge by explosions or collisions. (Just part of the "legacy" of the game being hurried out by the publisher.)


[edit] Star Trek: Armada

This game brings nothing much new to the RTS genre, other than it's a Star Trek game. In my own experience, it's easy to defeat the maximum number of AI players on "hard" difficulty, using only three maximum size groups of capital ships. One to guard the base and the other two to roam around and blow stuff up until the AI completely gives up and stops doing anything. It doesn't matter if all the AI's are allied or not, they're a pushover because the AI never uses multiple unit groups in concerted attacks.

However, the campaigns are quite well designed and get very difficult in later maps.

For multiplayer, stick to human opponents once you've beaten the "best" the AI has to offer.

Why are these here? --maru (talk) Contribs 17:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Modded a screenshot: high-res + high-Q

Higher quality screenshots should be posted here in the main article. We have too many blurry JPG's, that i believe are less desirable and informative, especially about the in-game quality. I took the liberty to upload a hi-q, hi-res screenshot for command and conquer generals for a start. is such a high resolution appropriate? Omega Said 11:10, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Hard to say. Theoretically, I don't think so, because of fair use considerations. --maru (talk) contribs 17:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

okay, no high-res if possible. but even tough, screenshots should still should looks less blurry. that screenshot also had reduced visual effects and thus, didnt represent the visual looks the developpers intended. I had some issue with the source btw. I made the screenshot myself but got a complaint about not stating the source. where can this source info be changed? thks! My first try with pics upload, that's why. I'm more used to english/french translations

For best results on lo-res pics, take a hi-res screenshot, reduce its dimensions by half, convert to PNG if necessary and upload that. For source, make sure to put {{game-screenshot}} in the description, state the name of the game, and state that you yourself took the screenshot (if you did, obviously). Nifboy 23:34, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

aknowledged. Omega Said 13:23, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The innovations of TA

"Cavedog Entertainment's acclaimed Total Annihilation from 1997 distils the selling positions of Command&Conquer but beyond sleeker gameplay and more intense action offers no innovations."

TA was one of the first rtses to use 3d graphics, and physics. it also introduced the fluid resource system, which is not very common even in modern rts games. there are also radar, sonar, and jamming, as well as a projectile system based on 3d coordinates rather than probability. correct me if I am wrong

[edit] Total War series

How is the Total War series not real-time strategy? If they're not RTS games, then what are they? bob rulz 09:02, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Total War is a turn-based strategy game meets a real-time tactics game.

[edit] Hero Units

I'm considering starting an acticle on Hero units in RTS games, but I need a little assistance.

Namely, I'm trying to decide on a proper name. Such as Hero Unit, or something more like Hero (Real-time-strategy).

Also, I would need some pictures of Hero Units, preferably alongside some more mundane infantry. Especially from Total Annihilation, Warcraft III, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth. Any other hero units, of course, would also be appreciated. SAMAS 15:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent revisions

A series of recent revisions, especially copyediting, have helped improve sections of the article, sometimes significantly. However, the articke was also sprinkled with enough {{or}} and {{citation needed}} templates to make it all but unreadable. I removed all these (and made some additional edits), but the underlying point the editor(s?) made with the templates remains valid. Therefore I would like to ask all editors to do your best to find and provide sources for the article contents. Also, if you find sections especially warranting warnings about lacking references, please use the {{Unreferencedsect}} template to mark this. Mikademus 08:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The first complete 3D RTS was "Populous: The Beginning" (1998) --68.254.148.210 05:06, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, however, why do you reply to this comment? Furthermore, just saying so does unfortunately not do much good if you do not supply a reference. -- Sirius81 | Talk 15:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Populous: The Beginning is a problematic title; it is a RTS game, but it also is part of the God game Populous series, straddling two genres. I think some sources would be necessary to bring it into the discussion without stoking potential flames. Mikademus 18:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Units

Under "gameplay" there's been added a "units" subheader. It is extensive but superfluous to the article and smells of original research. However, since a lot of work seems to have been put into it and it might be turned into something worthwhile, I didn't excise it, instead inviting comments from other editors. My suggestion is to snip if from the article and paste it into an article of its own (with a brief link from this one). Mikademus 18:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

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