Positively promoting stategy

I think it is generally accepted by now that PA will not be a game about micromanagement. It is a game that aims to make the main focus of the game on strategy on a large scale. There has been a lot of talk about tools and features which will downplay the role of micromanagement and make APM less of a determining skill. So far, this includes such ideas as robust order queuing, units that do not have player activated special abilities and some degree of smart unit A.I. I agree that this is an important discussion to be had.

However, a lot of the players of that other RT"S" game have raised a point of concern. "If we remove all the micro and APM requirements, how is it still an RTS" they say. Although this concern speaks of a lack of imagination, there is a small nugget of truth here. Consider what Starcraft (2) would be like with robust order queuing, auto-casting abilities, and smart units. It wouldn't really be much of a game, primarily because Starcraft has been geared around relying on heavy micromanagement as a core mechanic. This demonstrates something that I feel we have neglected slightly. Namely that it isn't enough just to remove micromanagement, but the game must positively "add strategy". Otherwise the game could end up being somewhat flat in terms of core mechanics.

So how do we do this. Firstly, if you are interested, you may wish to read this post I made earlier about challenge, choice and games:

I think this highlights some of the core reasons as to why we want to play games, and what we need to appeal to in order to make PA fun. So how does this relate to strategy?

Strategy is all about providing large scale choices. Strategy is things like deciding which planets to conquer first in order to shore up an economy, or deciding if we should try to overrun an enemy base with hoards of cheap units, or develop superior technology and shell them from a distance. Strategic choices are all about situations where a player has a lot of options as to how they take on their enemy at a grand scale, where there is no single optimal answer. This doesn't mean that there are no "wrong" answers, but it does mean that a player needs to have a variety of options at their disposal. If there is one "best" response, then the game returns to "who can figure it out and execute it the best" which collapses the interesting choices back down to a Stacraft-like clickfest. To be sure, there will be instances where the player has to recognise a best option in order to perform better than their opponent, but it shouldn't be the key focus of the game.
So the next question is, how do we actively promote strategic choices, beyond simply de-emphasising micromanagement. Here are some of my suggestions:

1. LOTS AND LOTS OF UNITS AND STRUCTURES: If strategy is all about choices, then the more choices the player has, then the more strategic options are available to them. The choices a player has are defined by the tools they have available, which means the units and structures they can use. For example, TA and it's successors are one of the few RTS series that have a VERY long range artillery structure as standard, meaning that the strategic choice of standing back and shelling your enemy into rubble is a choice that the player can make. This also means that the "1 purpose, 1 unit" paradigm common in many other games can be relaxed a little. In FA, UEF Titans and Percivals ostensibly both had high health, good dps and direct fire weapons, suggesting that one would make the other redundant. Yet despite the overlap, subtle differences in rate of fire, shields and amphibiousness made them both useful, despite the similarities. Thus having a little bit of overlap in unit roles is nothing to be ashamed of, if it gives more choices to the player.

2. Emphasising differences in theatre: The game has four different types of area in which to fight over - land, Air, water, and in orbit. All of these have the capability to be very different in how they should be used, which in turn adds lots of choices for how a player focuses their efforts. Should the player drown them in tanks, shell them with battleships, smart bomb key structures, or bombard from high orbit? All of these options have their own advantages and challenges in how they would be done, assuming they play quite differently. And these choices would make the strategy involved much more interesting.

3. Dynamic and varied counter-play: If you have never heard the term counter-play before, watch this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/counter-play. It is common RTS wisdom that "every action should have a viable counter to it". I would amend this to "every action should have multiple viable counters to it". For example, take nukes in TA and FA. At the moment, the choices are quite limited. If you see your enemy has a nuke launcher, build an anti-ballistic missile silo in order to counter it. Other options (e.g. a strat-bomber snipe) tend to be less optimal. However, in PA, nukes may briefly travel through the orbital layer, meaning we have an option to add meaningful choices for counter play. What if the player had a choice of building a less reliable terminal phase ABM silo in their base, or a more powerful but more vulnerable laser satellite in orbit? What's more what if ABM silos were less reliable, depending on where they were in relationship to the incoming nuke? A long time ago, I experimented with using Garry's mod to simulate ballistic missiles and ABM weapons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfUGdKG6_xM. I found that it was a lot easier to hit an incoming missile if it was heading straight for the ABM, than if it was heading off to one side. This isn't a ugly "probability to miss" mechanic, but follows simple and reliable rules that a player can control. This adds interesting choices to a play/counterplay metagame, instead of a simple action/response approach.

4.Powerful intelligence/counterintelligence options: In order to make informed choices, the player needs to have good information as to what the enemy is doing. Likewise, the enemy needs to have good opportunities to fool their opponent. For example, what if jamming structures threw up fake radar signatures that looked very much like a real base, with commonly occurring base patterns, such as defensive turret perimeters or radar signatures on metal points (so they look like MEXs on radar). This makes scouting and intel very important, and offers meaningful choices as to how we gather information.

Congratulations on making it this far though the post! I've offered a few general rules here as to how to positively "add strategy" to the game. I'm sure that there are many more ideas, and I'd like to hear yours.

Awesome post. I especially agree with point one, but your whole post reeks of goodness.

I like your post very much, options! options, and more options. That's what I love in a good RTS. If I loose, I want to be able to tweak my strategy next time, or even completely change the way I played a particular game. This is what makes me come back. I remember buying C&C around the same time as I bought TA. TA was an unknown then with no PR behind it, it looked cool so I bought it. Played C&C a few times but fell in love with TA, as it was something amazing. i played against a friend, he would win, I would win. The beauty of the game was the ability to vary our strategy & tactics, resulting in vastly different outcomes. I would have sleepless nights thinking of how I would approach the next battle. This is my hope for PA a return to a game that gives me a vast array of options, I hope to loose more sleep planing a revenge match against my mates. :geek:

I don't understand the sarcastic "skill" part, but otherwise, yeah

Great post, the one thing I would add is that while we should have many different units and structures they should be meaningfully different. Depth after all is meaningful choice and just having many units in itself doesn't add depth, we need varying unit roles and mechanics to achieve meaningful choice. As you pointed out an amphibious unit variation is such an example of meaningful difference and therefore depth.

Zero-K is a decent example of how to achieve meaningful difference between many units. Essentially there is a flat tech system with many different types of factories (bot, vehicle, hover, etc.). And each factory has an analogous variation of basic Unit Classes (raider, assault, skirmisher, etc.). The basic unit classes themselves are established by projectile simulation and Unit AI which allows for a natural balance to form. Unit AI is important because it accentuates unit characteristics while not increasing the APM required to normally exploit traits like agility, yawspeed, and acceleration on a grand (planetary) scale.

The problem I have with adding lots of choice is that usually that choice is between a overall better and worse unit.

And usually leads to confusion of unit role.

Like with the UEF Armoured assault bot, and Siege assault bot. There is nothing in their description that states what each is supposed to do when compared to the other.

Agreed, I particularly liked the unit descriptions in Company of Heroes, how and where units excelled was clear. Judging by alpha that won't be a problem for PA the way it was for SupCom. What's nice about a unit class system though is that it makes evaluating a great variety of units relatively easy.

Agreed. Would chess be a better game if it had 64 instead of 32 figures and the size of a chess bourd would be not 8*8 fields but rather 16*16 fields.
And instead of 6 different unittypes 12.

No it would not!
Dont mistake quantity for quality.
The fact that a system is large in scale is not equal to a high amount of complexity in it.
As i said chess has only 64 fields,32 figures and 6 unittypes, still a very complex game
even if its small in scale.

Bigger is not always better, at some point bigger is just more confusing.

Im fine with :
-there should be many different buildings
-play and counterplay
-air and ground units should have specific roles which dont colide.

This is also what i want to see in a good rts game.

But you will find these in every "How to make an good rts" book or post or script or whatever , if it is legit.

Dont act like you have invented this guidelines. And plz bring some ideas
-what kind of buildings should it be:
cloacking fields, nuclear silos, teleporters, trainstaitions for fast trooptransport and bombsupply for aircrafts, Underwaterbuildings with underwaterressourches,
giant underground vacuum tubes,laser array against artillery, repairdocks, laserwalls/fields
which turn of if the own units travel through, mines,... ???

The only example you brougth up was your fake radar generator.
Same goes for units.That there is probably some counterplay against incomming nukes,
is nothing new.

Summary of your post:
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Comand and conquer and starcraft are only rt but no rts.
=>strategy is only possible in large scale play.

If PA dosnt include

-many different units
-specific roles for each unit
-counterplay

than its boring.

-Idea for fake radar generator
-assumption: There will be propably some kind of orbital and ballistic counter against nukes
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Why make this in one side of a post, most of this is common sense.
"If you dont know what counterplay is" <link>
This halfsentence of your post says everything.

I wanted to talk a little bit more about unit redundancy, but I felt my OP was already getting a little on the long side.

You bring up Zero-K and it's a great example of what I'd like to get at. I mentioned the paradigm of "1 purpose, 1 unit" as common in many RTS games today. Perhaps i should refine that as "1 class, 1 unit". For example, many games will have one and only infantry unit (per side) which cant hit aircraft. This means if you are relying on infantry, you HAVE to make use of this unit. However, in Zero-K, if I have access to both a cloaky and a shield bot factory, then I can build two different anti-air bots. This gives me a choice as to what I want to use, which in turn means that the differences between them become more important. Shield bots tend to be slower and have higher HP, which means my AA force will be less mobile. It will have to act more as an airspace denial force, rather than a reactionary force. These kind of choices contrast much with the idea that there must be one (UNT PRECISELY VON) unit to occupy each role. Choices can still be meaningful if there are differences between how the units handle, or if they have unique features such as cloaks, amphibiousness, jamming etc.

In other words, the definition of "uniqueness" between units can be relaxed a little as a way of generating more player options. Obviously it is still better to generate lots of completely different units, if at all possible. I'd love to hear from a dev what kind of ideas they have for adding lots of different unit roles, but i appreciate that it's probably not their biggest concern at this instant.

Then it's not a choice. It's a puzzle as for who can figure out the "best" unit.

I realise that creating choices that don't collapse down to "better" and "worse" can be difficult, but games like TA and ZK are already walking down that path with some success. With the experience gathered at Uberent, it is my hope that they can walk down that path a little further.

As for the point about insufficient information being presented to the player, I agree we need to inform players about the capabilities of their units as best as possible. Coming up with a standardised, easy to read and descriptive system to do this is a bridge that needs to be crossed. A robust tutorial system would help as well, but ultimately the best learning experience would be seeing them used in battle.

I am not sure if we should endorse puzzle mini games.

OP is a gentleman and a scholar. Excellent points about variety and strategic choice.

I must agree with everyone else that quantity is not necessarily ideal though. I would much rather have 1 or 2 unique units per factory than 5 or 6 generic gunslinging combat units.