http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=61617 The General Theory of RTS Design - Paper 1 by Ikonoclast001 also known as Crazy_Cossack. (R. Pryor - Brisbane.) This Paper will be broken into sections due to its length. Section One appears below. Abstract (For the three paper series) The path to uncovering the General Theory commences with an appraisal of the time, space and scaling problems presented by RTS systems modelling. The three basic systems of RTS modelling are then considered; namely the environment as “given” system, the economy as primary dependent system and the military as secondary dependent system. In a second paper, reasons for the differences between artificial RTS strategy and classical military strategy are analysed and overcome. A fully integrated understanding of RTS design is developed in terms of combining RTS systems analysis and classical military theory. User control issues are considered, a major advance in AI design is outlined and a two-speed real-time game engine, with strategic time and tactical time auto-switched by the game engine, are proposed in Papers 2 & 3. This entire General Theory of RTS opens the path to creating realistic, large scale and strategic RTS games which will still be playable in the player’s real time. End of Absract. I take no credit for writing this although wholeheartedly applaud the analysis. Also of note: http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtop ... f=2&t=3180 (Interceptor vs ASF) -If it hasn't been emphasized yet Factories should be more Metal efficient than assisting engineers at producing additional units. This alone would be a dramatic intuitive improvement over previous RTS, Engineer should build structures not basic units.
Well that material almost put me to sleep and I only finished the abstract. There might as well be a book on it.
Would you explain them in a page? I believe that this forum is not for English 101. (Not meant to insult you, just wanted to say that the article is too long.)
i posted the abstract under the link, these are theoretical concepts and can't really be condensed further than beyond what they cover e.g. tactical trumping, differences between military strategy and RTS strategy and overcoming other technical problems.
Yeah, even the conclusions would be more than a page. But it looks like worth the read. Thank you for a response and sorry for the hasty claim.
What a huge read! Anyway, the conclusions are listed here: I can't say I agree with all of them. He places a lot of emphasis on keeping multiple tiers with lots of upgrades. And his ideas for other units are rather heavy handed. Take an MMORPG, where each player character is an "equal" and the conflict is measured in raw numbers. Any class with so much as a 20% advantage in one role will render every other choice completely non viable. The same applies to PvP, where it takes a very small numerical advantage to cause one class to beat the other, every time. Similarly, very subtle changes can be used in an RTS to dramatically change a unit's value in the field of battle. It does not take much for one unit design to completely trounce another.
I admit I only skimmed over this huge wall of text, so bare with me when I say this: You seem to aim for some kind of "how to scale down realistic war to a game". I think this does not result in anything that is even remotely as fun to play as TA/FA. The list propsed changes above makes me go dizzy and UBER will hopefully not implement most of those points. I can agree on 1, 6, 7, 22, 23, 25, 29. So out of those 29 points I think 7 are fine, many others are either not helpful or would totally remodel FA to be a very static and slow game. TA/FA as they were are pretty fun games and I think PA just needs to copy what is good (which is a lot) and improve a few things here and there. No need for complex reasonings about RTS in general.
I agree, the conclusions that are drawn are specific for a mod to Supreme Commander to make it less of a game of Tactical Trump, these conclusions are specific to Supreme Commander though and likely aren't meant for a game which would be built from the ground up with the highlighted theories in mind. Putting autodefense on factories for instance would nullify the viability of any base trade tactics and indeed his stated goal, was to understand why and how to emphasize strategy above all else. Another keen observation was made about the scaling/teching problem in Forged Alliance where competitively T1 functioned properly but T2 was often skipped or at best there would be a single T2 factory for a small portion of the game often assisted by a number of engineers. In this way costs were not loaded enough so that A) Multiple factories were viable, B) players were not very vulnerable when making a tech transition, C) Factories were less "build power" efficient pound for pound of mass/energy than engineers which is of course unintuitive. I think it's difficult to criticize some of the most overt theory presented and while his 'mod conclusions' are specific to Forged Alliance I have no doubt that specific sections will be of interest to UberEnt. I do not advocate making PA a game entirely of strategy, micro can be a rewarding and fulfilling tactic I would just hope it makes full use of the strategic potential it has in this early stage. I can't take credit for writing the paper, I also can't criticize personal preference as realistic nation/military simulation (e.g. Paradox Interactive) games are made, indeed those ARE grand strategy games. However there are many pitfalls wherein strategy takes a secondary priority in RTS games and the paper sought to understand why this was and how to address it, the pertinent theory is worthy consideration. Furthermore I agree with you that removing all tactics from the game is not necessary but improved design and play could be gained by understanding and taking advantage of the theory here. Off the top of my head some poor game design from FA was the ASF which excelled in all matters of air war, this posed a problem to dynamic gameplay in that there was no justification to build anything but ASF for air control. This for example could be changed by differentiating Interceptors as an anti-bomber/gunship planes and ASFs as anti-interceptor planes. Cheers, Veta
I don't see what this has to do with PA after skimming it. Was this guy the author of a mod or a game that we can look at?
The fellow who wrote the treatise seems to have a handle on some very obvious things, and just dresses them up with overly formal structure and abstract terminology. Oh, environment, economy, and then military as independent systems? You don't say. I took the time to read the whole thing, and there's really not much original thought behind it. I don't agree with him on everything, but he has a fairly normal position on RTS games. Anyone who has played enough RTS games could tell you all of it, and do so in much simpler and clearer language. I chuckled when he started talking about "Meta-Laws."
Besides any of the issues i have with the style of the paper. He has one good point. Linear versus exponential economy growth. I would rwally like to try that out in alpha or beta.
Oh, heavens, what a vocabulary. Seriously, though, he could have made his points in fewer words and a much more concise, less dense and more elegant style.
