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
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
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?
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.
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.
That is not true, at least in Age of Empires 2 which is the RTS I’m most familiar. Have a look at the limited viper series to see a good player destroy using only 60 APM. If you make good decisions, you don’t need to click as much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7moDQK1Yng&list=PLrFe08sgKX493Gax5DFNkpEbgICGDc0YJ
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”?
Because while this will make casuals that will play the game for 3 hours and drop it happy, the typical RTS fans will not enjoy this. There is a trade off between queuing a lot of units and having more resources available for other techs. Having units auto produce without any disadvantage is just kind of boring. Then you are just watching the game, not really playing it.
Maybe you should try turn based strategy, if you don’t like real time strategy. In the later, like the name implies, time is the most important resource. You don’t need a lot of clicks, but you need to use it wisely.
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 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 liked tiberium wars.
One of my favorite games actually.
Okay, and?
You’re allowed to like and enjoy things, even bad things… Hell, theres entire fandoms around liking bad things (like B-Movies), that doesnt make them less fundamentally bad. and it doesnt make you wrong for liking them.
As far as I’m concerned, the genre peaked with Battle for Middle Earth II.
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.
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.
Same thing happened to Bethesda games, each is more popular than the last and each has lost more of its magic.
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.
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.
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.
