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PC Games (Games) Real Time Strategy (Games) Entertainment Games

On The Ascent And Descent Of The RTS 89

Posted by simoniker from the peaking-over-troughs dept.
Thanks to GameSpot for their guest 'GameSpotting' editorial discussing the perceived decline of the real-time strategy genre. The author argues: "While there have been unusual bright spots on the RTS gaming scene, the overall look of it is pretty grim. Most games offer very little when it comes to revitalizing the genre, and eventually they even fail in rekindling old interests that faded away when we let go of Command & Conquer and Warcraft." He finishes with a call to arms, citing Command & Conquer: Generals ("[a] dearth of interesting strategies") and Age Of Mythology ("[offering a] rote formula") as examples of this lack of innovation, and urging: "Only you can stop the market from regurgitating the same old titles, and maybe even encourage it to make a few nudges in the right direction."
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On The Ascent And Descent Of The RTS More

On The Ascent And Descent Of The RTS

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  • Reminds me of adventure games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @06:12AM (#7607524) Homepage
    A few years ago adventure games were in this same 'state'. All you fans out there: be patient. In a few years time the genre will slowly awake from it beauty sleep, just like adventure games are doing at the moment.

    • try this game (Score:3, Informative)

      by hswerdfe ( 569925 )
      Liquid War [ufoot.org] its fun and it is a ...its not exactly eye candy though...Screen shost [ufoot.org]...
    • Except RTS game have HAD a game which stood out. Total Annihilation.

      That was over 6 years ago. Since then, we've been treated to a series of pre-TA games. Yes, Homeworld start a new sub-genre, but apart from that..nothing.

      In terms of interface, TA gives you a glimpse of something which would be a REAL change in RTS, and save us from increasing boring and/or purely tactical (NOT strategic) games.
      • Total Annihilation was boring and pointless. Warcraft 2 on the other hand was the pinnacle of RTS. The two races were quite even and it came down to a battle of skill, although I think my opinion is slightly rose colored due to the fact that the last time I played warcraft 2 I won a game 1 on 6 :)

  • boo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FinestLittleSpace ( 719663 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @06:28AM (#7607552)
    There's definately been a stagnant few years for RTS's. In the ages of Command & Conquer, Total Annihilation and Age Of Empires, I couldn't get enough, but someone milked the same formula far far FAR too much and killed the key original concepts.

    As far as I can see, people became desperate to improve on something that wasn't 'broke' and made worse and worse DEvolutions of a genre which once sailed high.

    I'll still never forget the endless playing of C&C and TA.... but its gone stale now... im not sure if they'll ever return to quality of the great games of their hayday, but it'd be nice to think so.

    Bring back dodgy sprites and top down views!

    • Re:boo (Score:3, Interesting)

      by xSauronx ( 608805 )
      i havent really enjoyed a rts in a couple of years because its all...the same. Homeworld was good, it was fun to control the space fleets, but the strategy element wasnt so strong, and due to lack of broadband 5 years ago i never got to play multiplayer any. I dont like H2 enough to buy it.

      The last game i liked was Warrior Kings, buggy, but it allowed for more strategic elements, and the new version recently released had a battle-only mode. You decide on the composition of your army, choose a map, and have

      • If you like huge battles, try cossacks (www.cossacksfrance.com), you can have thousands of units in battles, it is just amazing.

        Hell of a lot of fun in multiplayer, too.

      • Give the Total War series a shot - features truly gigantic battles that are extremely tactical (all features morale, which I think is missing from too many games - you can turn it off though). I prefer Shogun to Medieval, as Medieval's turn-based strategy component just requires too much micro-management. Both of them have perfectly excellent skirmish and scenario modes though. Might want to check out the vids for Rome: Total War, too, as it looks utterly amazing.

        Another game to check out would be the Sid

    • Re:boo (Score:3, Insightful)

      by KDan ( 90353 )
      Agreed on most RTS's. A big bright light for Warcraft 3 though. That one introduced many gameplay innovations, that made it a truly different game (yet still RTS). Not at all a stale rehash-the-same-game-with-different-graphics-and-p lot affair like the C&C's, Age Of XYZ, and other variations...

      Daniel
      • Warcraft 3 is the first RTS since Starcraft to hold my attention. The units, the graphics. Warcraft 3 is just class from top to bottom. (We'll ignore the rather dull single player campaign.)

        The best RTS ever made IMO is Myth 2: Soulblighter. Still got a massive fan community now (who through a deal with bungie, have been able to release patches to make the game work properly in XP etc...), and is the only game from the 90's that I still regularly play. Okay, it's not the resource gathering type of game, bu
      • introduced many gameplay innovations? are you daft? name one. there is NOTHING original in WC3. any feature you can name I can name two games that did it earlier AND BETTER.
      • I have to agree with Sparr0. I can't think of one major innovation that Warcraft 3 introduced. I think it is more likely that you just haven't played many other recent pre-WarcraftIII RTS games, which is certainly okay!

    • Total Annihilation was one of the best games ever (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @12:08PM (#7609227) Journal
      TA was a *fantastic* game.

      There were a couple of really neat things it did.

      It was one of the first games to leave Blizzard-style micromanagement. The interface is designed so that using it isn't one of the challenges of the game (limited group sizes, queues, etc), but to help you as much as possible (flexible AI toggles per group or unit, easy to queue up masses of units and preassign orders, etc).

      It was the first I know of to have really neat sea battles. Infantry were cheap -- you could churn out tons -- but each ship was *expensive*, and specialized. The first time I played a sea battle level, I was enthralled.

      It had great explosions and fires.

      Battles took place over more realistic ranges -- people didn't shoot the equivalent of twenty feet. The biggest guns could lob rounds from seven or more screens away.

      There was no limit on resources. A round didn't come to an end because you exhausted your resources -- you used everything possible, just as intelligently as you could.

      There were masses of intelligent auto-build and repair abilities.

      And a ton of other things.

      Cavedog (TA's publisher) could have gone far, but for two factors: Blizzard, it's main competitor, didn't make as good games but had a phenomenal marketing budget that it used well, and TA's sequel, TA:Kingdoms, really sucked compared to TA.

      Incidently, the guy that designed the TA system (where you could tell things to follow things that attacked them, or not etc)...I believe his name was "Tim" something...went on to make some medieval game with the same style interface. It wasn't an RTS, though. I can't remember the name. Fantastic to see that one game designer is interested in making a highly usable interface, not one that you have to fight.

      • You're thinking of Chris Taylor. He was the genious behind TA (and TA:CC) before Cavedog folded. Now he's working at Gas Powered Games, creators of Dungeon Siege.
        Rumor has it, Chris would *love* to create the spiritual successor to TA, but that it just isn't his decision to make. :(

        RIP, TA. Best damn RTS ever.

        • Re:Total Annihilation was one of the best games ev (Score:4, Informative)

          by Recoil_42 ( 665710 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @06:25PM (#7612859) Homepage Journal
          Actually, it IS his decision to make, and *drumroll please*, [b]hes made that decision.[/b]

          Expect the "spiritual succesor to TA in 2005-2006, after DS2 (Dungeon Siege 2) is released.

          Apparently its already started, although its really low-key till DS2 is released.. they're mainly making it almost as a hobby for now.. adding bits here and there at their leisure.

          how can you be assured i know what im talking about?
          |
          | yay for sigs.
          |
          |
          V
          • Hey, well thanks for the info. I've been out of touch with the TA universe for quite a while now, so I hadn't heard of Chris actually getting the green light on that project :O
            Perhaps the only dissapointing part is that it probably won't be called TA2. I think Humongous Ent. still owns the rights to that name :(
            But thanks for the heads up. Definitly gonna be keeping an eye peeled in '05. :)
          • Sigh...but I can't reasonably expect a Linux version.

            Damn it, I should really sit down and spend a couple weeks trying to figure out what would be involved in some sort of system that would allow binary distribution of (fast) software under Linux that wouldn't break in twenty four months. Stallman may love open source, but the world's always going to have some form of binary-only software...and Linux trails Windows in this arena terribly. :-(
      • There was another game that came out later that fell into line with TA. Eidos released a game called Warzone 2100 that pretty much ripped off everything that was great about TA and even, believe or not, managed to add a few elements that really made it better.

        The control method was identical to TA which goes to show you can't improve on perfection.

        They added upgrades, not the pathetic level or two that most games have, but what seemed like hundreds. I boxed the computer into a corner one game then spe

  • .oO(?) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by neglige ( 641101 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @06:38AM (#7607573)
    Name substantial gameplay differences between Red Alert, Warcraft II, KKND, M.A.X, Knights and Merchants [...] they all offer roughly the same gameplay. It may look a bit different, but it boils down to the same formula: Settle down, collect, build up, expand, destroy.

    I hate to burst his bubble, but that is what (RT)S is all about. Next, he says that adventures had no substantial progress since "Adventure" because they are still "solve the puzzles and win" and FPS are all about "shoot the enemy dead".

    Besides, there are quite a few games that took RTS one step further, the author names three of them. And yet the future looks grim? C'mon, there are bright spots in every genre, and there is the mass of run-of-the-mill games. That hardly counts as a descent of the genre.

    Plus, many games cross borders and mix RTS with RPG or RTS with FPS (Battlezone). So there are influences from other generes that bring in fresh ideas.

    I just realized my post has many TLAs. Oh well.

  • Evolution... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mst ( 30456 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @06:48AM (#7607600)
    The genre is not descending, it is evolving - though not primarily through the main commercial channels (yet). Just look at the popularity of Natural Selection [natural-selection.org], a truly innovative approach to real-time strategy: Replacing the dumb computer-controlled units with online gamers.

    This idea seems so good to me that I find it surprising that we haven't seen more games of this type yet. (Or maybe someone have? If so, please shout :-)

    • Re:Evolution... (Score:3, Informative)

      by MMaestro ( 585010 )
      Actually there is already a game which melds FPS gaming with RTS gaming and its mainstream (doesn't seem to be TOO successful though). Its called Savage : Battle for Newerth. There are two sides each with different weapons and abilities and both sides gets a human player as the commander. Quite better than Natural Selection since its run by a full fledged company rather than a small group of unpaid modders.
      • Google game me this [netjak.com] review on Savage: Battle for Newerth, which paints a pretty positive picture of the game.

        Maybe the limited success comes from the fact that there is no single-player mode where one can practice as a commander or grunt? In Natural Selection you can at least hook up some bots on a local server for practicing.
        • I was definitely excited Savage until I found out there was no single-player mode. I don't know why they'd omit this critical element. (No AI programmer?)
      • Or what about the HL mod Natural Selection [natural-selection.org]?
      • How do you get Quite better than Natural Selection from since its run by a full fledged company rather than a small group of unpaid modders?

        Why, going by that logic, one would have to conclude the Dai-Katana beats the hell out of CounterStrike.
        • Its better logic than assuming 'if its open source, its better than Windows.'

          Counter Strike (PC), and Half-Life for the most part, is still riddled with rampant cheating and gun imbalances. Counter Strike is unarguably good, but its by no means Half-Life 1.5 or Battlefield 1942 0.5 . I'm just trying to say that a game/mod thats developed and supported by unpaid people tend to be of lower quality.

  • That guy is not exactly an expert... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Frnknstn ( 663642 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @07:01AM (#7607636)
    Apart from my differing opinion about Generals (which has very good multiplayer, especially with the Zero Hour expansion), I find it hard to trust any article about RTS games that claims that Dune 2 was the first game in the genre.

    The author states "But that alone is not the only piece of misinformation regarding the RTS genre" when it is he that is spreading misinformation. Take for example, Hertzog Zwei, a Megadrive (Genesis) RTS that far predates Dune 2.

    The entire article seems to be nothing but a badly-constructed collection of ruminations about RTS games. I don't claim this post to be any better constructed than his article, but I can claim that I am not trying to make you think I am important and cool by hinting at things I don't really understand.

    Take for example the section marked "The Problem". All he does to establish what he thinks the problem is, is list a group of ancient RTS games, and then complain that they all had a lot in common. Of course they had something in common: they were all members of the same genre. An RTS game without most of the things he lists, "Settle down, collect, build up, expand, destroy" would not be an RTS.

    So, there was no real point to that section of the article, unless all he meant to say was "I am bored of the RTS genre." The thing that make this article detestable is the way he then tries to make us think he is clever, and actually has a point. First, he make a parenthetical aside about the old games he lists, hinting that they didn't have all that much of a storyline. Oh, what wit! What intellect! What humour the author commands!

    Secondly, he tries to make his idea bigger than they are. For example, the use of the rhetorical question "...need I go on?", when he does, in fact, need to go on, because he has yet to make any point. He instead writes "...need I go on?", hoping that the reader will assume he made an important point.

    The rest of this article continues in the same vein. The author comes close to realising the stupidity of what he is writing when he adds, in the section marked 'But still a problem': "but seeing how there are dozens of titles clinging to the same genre".

    How is it that the author cannot understand that the non-innovative games that he lists, including Generals and Age of Mythology, are as much members of the RTS genre as the innovative ones he lists, Starcraft and Homeworld?

    And again, if one has a flaky and ill-established point, why say there are "dozens" of examples, rather that actually list them?

    I, on the other hand, believe that I have made my point, and will forgo listing other examples of the poorness of this article. If you disagree, post a response and I will elaborate.
    • I find it hard to trust any article about RTS games that claims that Dune 2 was the first game in the genre. ... Take for example, Hertzog Zwei, a Megadrive (Genesis) RTS that far predates Dune 2.

      But that wasn't an RTS, it was just a strategy game that took place in real time. ;)

      Dune 2 can be described as the first RTS, even by someone who admits that there were a number of similar games preceding it, on the basis that it was the game which created the genre: when other companies began to jump on the ban
      • Next you'll be telling me Wolfenstein 3D wasn't the first FPS... :p

        It wasn't. As far as our research goes, that honor goes to Red Baron from the late 70's. But your point is well taken. Rarely do the innovators in gaming do blockbuster sales. Rather it's the imitators who improve upon the original design who get the most attention. From there it just snowballs.

      • the game they were imitating was Dune 2, not Hertzog Zwei.

        True, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say that although Dune 2 wasn't the first RTS, it did create the genre.

        I probably shouldn't get so worked up about things like that, but I can't stand it when people masquerade as experts.

        "It is the responsibility of intellectuals to tell the truth and to expose lies" --Noam Chompsky

        (And the first FPS I had was called The Colony, but there is a very good case for saying that Battlezone was the
    • MMPORTS
      RTSS

      Rise of Nations
      Shattered Galaxies
      Savage

      Impossible Creatures
      Tropico

      Warcraft 3
      Mob Rule
      Startopia

      A more wordy post was lost to a system error, but I believe the above list makes the point.

  • big hitter required (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @07:21AM (#7607689) Journal
    The RTS world needs a big hitter to put it back in the charts.

    But no innovation?

    Bullfrog has looked after us well.

    How about Dungeon Keeper & Black and White.

    Both are as RTS as they come but did an admirable job of putting the raw mechanics of '5x = 1y' behind the theme.

    It was a sad day to learn that Dungeon Keeper 3 put on hold indefinately [gamespot.com]

    I don't think that the Total War series really fits into the RTS genre considering the time spent in the turn based portion of the game.

    I've been hankering after some RTS action recently but don't feel like revisiting.

  • Total Annihilation: Good Approach (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fuzzybunny ( 112938 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @07:24AM (#7607692) Homepage Journal

    Total Annihilation from Cavedog took a fairly cool approach to the whole resources thing--making them inexhaustible. It also nicely let you not just put units on hold, but actually slow down production depending on how many you built at the same time.

    It didn't fix the problem with harvest-build-attack being sort of rote-ish, but for those of us who like a quick murderous game, it's a nice approach. Even when I got crushed online (always), it at least took my opponents several minutes of gradually rolling carnage through the solid curtain of fire from my defense guns to get through to my base and wipe me out.

    The major problem I have with these games is the impression I have that they put too much emphasis on 1v1 combat. There doesn't seem to be enough incentive for everyone to go after everyone; all the online games I've played have resulted in the two strongest players eliminating everyone else, and then going at it for a few minutes. Call me obsessive, but I rather enjoy having either teams or some way for weaker players to survive. But then again, I enjoy the actual battle rather than the resolution of the game.

    To be honest, I also think that a lot of the weaknesses in gameplay in FPS, unlike with many-multiplayer battle games like BF1942, is that they are best played among friends.
    • The problem with teamplay is different skill level.

      It's relatively easy to build teams of novices since this is where most people fit.

      Unfortunately, as you go up in skill level, the number of people available to make a team diminishes almost exponentially.

      This is what is happening in Warcraft III on Battle.net. Once you go up in level, you have to wait longer and longer to get a team game or even a 1v1 game. And this is by making teams out of players of different levels so it would be even worse if a tea

    • Re:Total Annihilation: Good Approach (Score:4, Redundant)

      by Chelloveck ( 14643 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @10:24AM (#7608424)

      TA is definitely my all-time favorite RTS. It had great depth of gameplay; there was no one killer strategy. TA has tons of possible strategies and counter-strategies. Intelligence-gathering is key -- you need to know what your opponents are up to so you can counter them.

      The game itself had a ton of balancing options, too. Prior to starting you could allow or disallow individual unit types. This could handicap a good player or just give the game a little more variation. Turn off the Advanced Aircraft plants, for example, if you want a grunt war.

      The control scheme was great. You could queue orders for any unit, including buildings. You could assign buildings to control groups, so any new units produced there were automatically assigned to a group. I always assign my main production buildings to groups, and give them a perimeter patrol path that emerging units will follow. Then queue up a bunch of units and go off to focus on something else, content that the units will be built and not just stand around looking like a big target.

      UberHack [rakrent.com] was a great mod for the game, too. It added a lot of new features to the game. Best. Mod. Ever. TA with Uberhack became a lunch-hour favorite for better than a year where I was working at the time.

  • need tag team (Score:4, Interesting)

    by glassesmonkey ( 684291 ) * on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @07:31AM (#7607710) Homepage Journal
    I like the approach of some of these newer mix-ed mode games, where there is a few "planners" and the rest are foot soldiers (usually FPS-like). I always thought that the WarCraft genre would be cool if it was tag-team and one person could only do the resources/build units/research and another person concentrated on unit movements and battle. (Or maybe a smart AI or pre-programmed profile that handled decisions about what to research or when to build new units)

    • Re:need tag team (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You could do that in Starcraft using the "Team" multiplayer modes that were rarely used. They let two (or more) people control the same team, effectively letting one person worry about resources and another handle combat.

      Or you could have two handling combat during big fights, and so on. I played that way a few times with a friend who was a great base builder, and he left the exploration and conquest to me (although he built most of the army, I'm the one who used it). It worked out really well.

  • As I recall it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sbryant ( 93075 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @07:56AM (#7607764)

    CnC was not the first RTS in the same way that Doom was not the first 3D shooter. They are both the one that many people remember as leading in the genre.

    I think he's right about the decline - at least to a certain extent. Here's my quick summary of the Westwood games as I remembered them:

    • Command and Conquer
      Groundbreaking; excellent story, gameplay and music. Very easy to get into. Liked it lots.
    • Red Alert
      Prequel to CnC, so the story fits in. Gameplay much the same, but different units (including ships and planes) made it interesting. Excellent music. Decent skirmish mode too (which CnC lacked). Liked it lots.
    • CnC Tiberian Sun
      Story continues from CnC, so it fit in (ok, a little stretched, but we'll allow it!). New graphics engine, new units, still interesting. Music didn't kick like the first two. Mild cheesiness, but I still thought it was OK.
    • RA II
      Story somewhere between first RA and CnC, but no Kane (some Yuri person instead), so didn't feel quite right. New units, but the cheesiness factor was way up (eg: units all cheer when you complete a mission). Don't remember the music - I was too distracted by all the cheese.
    • RA II - Yuri's Revenge
      Still annoyed at having been ripped off last time, so didn't bother with this. Smelled like cheese to me anyway.
    • CnC Generals
      By now I was into Team Fortress, so I didn't bother. Still annoyed with them too.

    Occasionally, I still fire up Red Alert (which runs just fine under wine). It's still fun. It's certainly nostalgic.

    The article didn't talk much about Age of Empires, which for me at least, brought some interesting game play - the different types of units and the whole development concept.

    I didn't see Total Anihilation mentioned anywhere, which I found odd. That game took the graphics to new hights, and the gameplay too, with much more in the way of ships, subs and planes than Red Alert. Having a commander and nanolathing were interesting. If you were quick, you could have a transport plane pick up the enemy commander at the beginning of a multiplayer game!

    OK, so the basic strategies are much the same, but that's the RTS genre. For me, the decline has not been the lack of new stragies. It's been the lack of new story lines and cool music.. and the addition of cheesey units

    -- Steve

    • If you just forget about the CnC story line then Red Alert 2 and Yuri's revenge are pretty good. I enjoyed CnC and Red Alert but I found Tiberian Sun was not as much fun as the first CnC. Generals is pretty fun and you might find it a worthy buy.
      • Generals, especially with Zero Hour, has the best skirmish mode of any C&C game, and is among the best skirmish modes of any RTS game. I especially like the various medals it hands out for accomplishing certain goals, as it gives me something to shoot for without having to make them up for myself.

        For the basic game with the default 3 sides the Zero Hour expansion is fairly limited in scope, adding a handful of derivative units and some play balancing (like AA countermeasures for planes on the US side).
    • RA1... WINE? WOOHOO!!!!! i just fired up mandrake 9.1 3 days ago, i've been using red hat 8 in server mode for a long time now, and 2000 for my desktop which stubbornly refuses to run RA. what about multiplayer? IPX i assume works, if the kernel is set up to use it, or does it do TCP/IP?

      • Re:As I recall it... (Score:3, Informative)

        by sbryant ( 93075 )

        what about multiplayer? IPX i assume works, if the kernel is set up to use it, or does it do TCP/IP?

        I have to admit that I never tried that. Sorry. :-(

        There was a bug with running under Wine, where just occasionally the mouse pointer would disappear. Didn't happen often though; you could still click on things, but when you can't see your pointer it's a little difficult.

        While I'm here, some other tips:

        When I ran it, I had it run in its own X instance, which was set to 640x480; no window manager or an

  • I haven't bought a RTS since TA (well, I bought Kingdoms, but that was to support the development of TA2, which never happened). I consider the game to be the peak of the genre, with everything else just rehashing paper/rock/scissors. I read in an interview that Chris Taylor was doing an RTS after he finished Dungeon Siege. That was a bit over a year ago, so does anybody know what Gas Powered Games is up to?

  • While it might be the case... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SurgeryByNumbers ( 726928 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @09:00AM (#7607965)
    While it might be the case that there have been plenty of poor RTS games released in the recent past, there have also been a few gems: Rise of Nations, by BigHuge Games, is one that I haven't seen mentioned, and it is quite amazing. Don't be thrown off if you didn't like the AOE games; it's quite different, and completely enjoyable. The whole city-based development adds alot to the genre.
  • I loved Starcraft and TA.

    I got Warcraft III, played the Single-player campaign until about half-way into the undead campaign, and then stopped playing. Don't know why.

    I've never been that great with RTS online anyways. I can't seem to multi-task that well in those, and can never make up my mind when to launch an opening assualt. Not to mention I'm slow at doing things in those games which is bad.

  • Wishful thinking (Score:5, Interesting)

    by (trb001) ( 224998 ) on Tuesday December 02, 2003 @09:18AM (#7608058) Homepage
    Personally, it peaked with Starcraft for me. I'm just now replaying Brood Wars because I realized I had never finished it, and it's *still* a fun game, albeit a little rote.

    My wish for an RTS game is the following: the build, collect, search, destroy algorithm would still hold true, but it could actually be expanded over multiple missions. In other words, when you built that command center in the first mission, it stuck around throughout the game. Resources would be harder to get, so that Carrier would actually MEAN something and you would want to protect it at all cost.

    What RTS games come down to is you are playing a very small part in the very big picture, and the author's have a hard time establishing a believable storyline with only showing a single battle. Perhaps entire campaigns, where you zoom in on individual battles, or something would be more interesting.

    --trb
    • I seem to recall that this is the way that Homeworld worked. I haven't played Homeworld 2 yet, but I understand it works the same way.

      Now Ground Control had all that, except that you didn't collect resources. Your units would gain experience, however, and carry over from mission to mission. As the game went on, you'd gain more.
    • The Moon Project (Earth 2150 sequel) is such a game : you start with 2 "zones" (maps), one of which is your HQ. Every mission takes place in another zone and you can transport units between any of them. So all units you build are kept for future mission, provided that you have the patience to bring them back to the headquarter...

      The Moon project is one of the most advanced RTS i've ever seen, in concepts... The company developping it sunk while it was at final stage of QA. you can see it in the extreme unb
  • SpellForce [jowood.com]

    One of the more unique RTS games I've played in a long time. It's as if the developers couldn't decide between an RTS or an RPG.

    Advoid Lords of Everquest. What a load of crap. Sony proved that companies are just regurgitating the same old formulas.

  • Oh, tosh (Score:2, Informative)

    by Mukaikubo ( 724906 )
    RTS gamers just have to realize that Real Time Strategy doesn't have to only be the same old same old build-base kill-base rinse lather repeat paradigm we've had to deal with since Command and Conquer. There is room for complexity and brilliance in games that are real time, but bear no resemblance to those.

    Have you heard of Paradox Entertainment? How about Europa Universalis 2, Hearts of Iron (second thought: forget about that one), or Victoria? They're, technically, real time strategy games, albeit with
    • Ok, since you're a EU fan, I thought I would try you on this question. I have EUII (got it for Christmas last year), and I just could NOT get into it.

      Two problems:
      1. I didn't get to the point where I could see what I was doing was having a visible effect on the course of the game. EUII can be a subtle game, and the subtleties just whizzed past me somewhere in there. It wasn't much fun to sit there and get creamed and not even know why.

      2. Related to #1 I'm sure: It just wasn't any fun. I never found
      • Hm. Only thing I know to tell you is to go to the forums here [europa-universalis.com] from the main page and start asking questions, reading FAQs, downloading the multitude of patches, et cetera. The people are generally helpful.
  • ...give Warlords Battlecry 2 a try. Web site is here: http://www.warlordsbattlecry2.com/ Sure, it's got 12 different races to choose from, lots of units and spells, heros you level and equip from game to game....that's fine, but what really makes this game great is the random map generator. Currently, I have a Human Paladin, a Dwarf Merchant, and a Wood Elf Druid. The Paladin is can heal himself and his armies, the Merchant can produce units for less and exchange resources at a better rate, and the Drui
    • I second this

      WBC2 is a little rough around the edges, but a very fun game multiplayer. Your hero (WBC beat WC3 to the "hero" units by over a year) levels up and can be carried over from battle to battle. Its not unlike having a Diablo character leading your armies into battle. You have 12 races to pick from, and about 14 or so character classes. Stats are bought with skill points so there is a fair bit of freedom to customize your character. All units in game can level up through combat, and after the ba
  • How can he list Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne in his 'games played' at the top, yet not mention it in his article? Even if he thought war3x had no improvements for the RTS genre, it deserved a passing mention even for its lack of 'innovation'.

    I know its a large topic that would take a long time to discuss, but I just want to add that I think arguably there has been innovation in RTS, especially with Blizzard's games. Take war3's 'hero' concept, for better for worse, and I think there is SO much thinking
  • Another poster brought up the fact that the editorial puts forth Dune 2 as the "first RTS", which is obviously wrong.

    What was it, though? You might call Warcraft the first "modern RTS", I guess, but reaching back into the dark corners of my youth, I'm coming up with Ancient Art of War as the first RTS. It was, what, 1981 or so on a CGA PC?

    Anyone know something before that (or want to argue that AAW was not an RTS)?
    • The Ancient Art Of War wasn't released until 1984. It also wasn't fully real-time, because all battles would be played out in sequence even if they should be occurring simultaneously, and reinforcements couldn't arrive in the middle of a battle.

      Depending on how you choose to define RTS, you could go as far back as Sea Battle (1980) or Utopia (1981) on the Intellivision. Sea Battle had ship building, real-time deployment, and real-time combat, though it also had all of the battles play out in sequence in

      • If you are talking about strictly resource-collection, army building, conquering a map, all in real-time then it's Powermonger. Powermonger wasn't as popular and is overlooked in most debates, but it beat Dune 2 to the market by several months. As a side note, Powermonger was in pseudo-3D. You could spin the world to view your armies as they traveled over mountains. ;) It took quite a few more years before RTS's moved into 3D.
  • RTS games are the most difficult games to make for multiplayer in my opinion. The reason for this is two fold. If you are brand new, and just trying to play the games online, you will lose to everyone. Unlike fps games or mmorpgs, even experienced players cant just pick up the game and expect to do well. The second reason is a balance issue. Even if you become good at the games, there are always serious balance issues which take an incredible amount of time to manage. There are very few companies that

  • Myth (Score:1)

    by Reapy ( 688651 )
    I don't know if this counts as an RTS, but I definatly give RTS's credit for spawning this masterpiece of a game. Myth and Myth II were fantastic games. I LOVE tactical combat, I hate managing resouces in rts games. Give me some points, let me buy my units, and get to the fun part, the combat.

    Anyway, author's just bored with rts as we all are. RTS's arent dieing, they are getting better, I see nothing but improvments to the formula on most of the bigger games. Basically there hasnt been a new genera to mak

  • RTS Review (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From GameSpot Computer game magazine:
    http://www.gamespot.com/strategy/chess/review.htm l

    CHESS
    By Greg Kasavin

    The latest offering in the rapidly overflowing
    strategy genre is hard evidence that strategy games
    need a real overhaul, and fast. Chess, a
    small-scale tactical turn-based strategy game,
    attempts to adopt the age-old "easy to learn,
    difficult to master" parameter made popular by
    Tetris. But the game's cumbersome play mechanics
    and superficial depth and detail all add up to a
    game t
  • Simple, they take the strategy out of the game.

    Too many units mean too many different actions, and the units in general are dumb as rocks.

    WC3 improved this a little bit with the ability to turn on healing spells as such, but still certain units take too much time to hand hold that they become ineffective.

    If you have 200 dumb units you just send them all at once, maybe picking out a couple to use their special abilities.

    The newer games do better at making units smarter but not good enough.

  • good ones (Score:2, Interesting)

    by theMerovingian ( 722983 )
    Check out Medieval Total War. [totalwar.com]

    This is a great game - you can choose any one of a number of European and Muslim countries, and guide it through the middle ages. When the Muslims send Imams to scout out your country and convert the populace, you can assassinate them. You can also declare crusades, marry off your daughters for political gain, conquer others, and get trade monopolies. A good time.

    Also, the original MechCommander [game-revolution.com] is fun. You defeat enemy mechs in combat, and sometimes you can salvage their
  • There have been several RTS games that I have felt improved the genre. Rise of Nations was a good one. I don't think it was very innovative but very well polished. The introduction of a larger tech tree added some fun game play. Also the way cities are founded and captured is pretty good too. The multiplayer mode where 2 people run one nation was pretty fun too. Its biggest drawback for me was that it was such a pain to get to serve up games from behind a NAT firewall.
    Homeworld was cool because of the
  • Our gaming group has moved from starcraft to warcraft 3 to empire earth (unmentioned thus far) to rise of nations and now we're going back to warcraft 3. One guy has been playing homeworld 2 and finds it to be quite enjoyable, but I don't get it.

    Our main beefs with EE and RoN were that while EE had a much longer timeline (you get to play in the future, with future weapons) and this was fun, both it and RoN required micromanaging the individual units quite a lot. The AIs used by both, once you set the diff

  • Translations (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's amazing how well it translates. I do actually have a point after the parodies.

    --
    Original:

    The Problem
    Look at RTS titles over the years. It's been almost 12 years now since the genre as we know it was introduced, and how much significant advancement can you say has been achieved in the field? Advancements in graphics hardly count as specific improvements--strategy games may benefit from advances in technological prowess, but they're certainly not the catalyst for such advances. Maybe a few companies h
  • For those of you who haven't given CNC Generals a shot, I really recommend that you do. It is the best RTS in some time and is even better with the Zero Hour expansion. It is one of those few games that I have bought multiple copies of (2) so that I can (legally) play with friends on my LAN and online. I put it up there with my other two RTS favorties, Homeworld and TA (which was probably the best).

    The skirmish mode in CNC Generals Zero Hour is excellent, and the computer can at many times put up a decent

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