EPT
Anyways, every time a thread comes up on how SC2 could improve, there is a certain line of thinking that really frustrates me. It frustrates me because there is a fairly common misunderstanding of the sort of strategic options available in BW that simply don’t exist in SC2 in a meaningful way as of yet. And this is despite some fairly big names including the ever positive Day9 stating the contrary.
This is not SC2 vs BW. This is not how I want SC2 be another BW. (I don’t. I want it to be better.) This is trying to correct a false idea of mechanics and strategy by looking at Broodwar, Supreme Commander 2, and Starcraft 2.
The problem:
These are a selection of quotes that I could easily find much more. I couldn’t find the most egregious which compared BW actions to having to perform 30 pushups before completing an action.
The Micro aspect overall is a smaller portion of the gameplay as in BW, so is the Macro aspect.
Meaning that strategy is what will win the game.
Meaning that strategy is what will win the game.
And at the end of the day, I want to play a strategy game where I have to think about how to win. Not one where I won because solely I clicked faster and microed so godly that I didn't have to put any thought into it.
the mechanical skill required may be less than BW, but that only results in the strategical aspect of Sc2 being more important in the skill cap. And strategy has most certainly not hit a skill cap yet. For a strategy game, strategy is where the skill cap should be, not in the mechanics necessary to pull it off.
Players shouldn't have to fight against the game engine or deal with arbitrary mechanics.
The common idea is that BW has all these extra/ unnecessary steps that SC2 streamlines. Therefore, SC2 is the more cerebral game where the person with the best strategy wins.
Premise:
If we disagree at this stage, then we have a more fundamental disagreement of what a strategy game should be about.
I play lots of strategy board games: Settlers of Catan, Axis and Allies. I’ve combined Settlers with Axis and Allies and Monopoly with Stock Ticker and I’ve created a giant Star Wars strategy game with different sized ships. using poker chips for pieces.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4mVJC.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/znmMc.jpg)
Fun games in their own right, but have you ever tried combining them?
All of those games are strategy combined with luck (dice). It’s all cerebral- choose the best strategy, buy the right stuff, attack at the right time and hope the dice are with you.
I have also played Civ 2, 3, and 4 which are massive turn based strategy games. And I’m really into all those games. But that’s not what I like about RTS.
When I play an RTS, I want to be able to build the right stuff, but when it comes to a battle, I want to be the significant factor in influencing the battle. I don’t want to simply send my troops into battle and worry about something else. At the same time as I’m building new units, I want to be making snap decisions that require quick reaction time on the battle field.
One of my biggest frustrations with Age of Empires 2 is once the battle started, the troops would run amuck and there was really no proper attack move, but at least units responded fairly quickly. Battle for Middle Earth was extremely dull because the units were so sluggish. It was impossible to properly control the units.
So my starting premise is I want to be able to precisely control my troops rapidly- pre-battle, mid-battle, post-battle. Or more simply, it’s not just what I make, but how well I use it.
This is not Civilization armies and fleets sprawling across continents where I have all the time in the world to plan and strategize.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OK6Pr.gif)
This is a game of no mechanics and all strategy
Defining our Terms
To make sure we are on the same page, we’re dealing with Real Time Strategy.
Strategy
Generally being a plan of action designed to achieve a vision. And being in Real Time (not Blizzard time), time is a valuable commodity. If there are things to do and a limited time to do it, multi-tasking and prioritizing becomes part of your strategy.
Mechanics
From Liquidpedia:
When someone refers to a players mechanics they are referring to the non strategical aspects of a players game. Aspects of mechanical skill include:
* Micro
* Macro
* Multitasking
Mechanical skill in StarCraft is closely related with a players handspeed (APM), good mechanical players will generally have higher APM.
* Micro
* Macro
* Multitasking
Mechanical skill in StarCraft is closely related with a players handspeed (APM), good mechanical players will generally have higher APM.
Of that, what I’m most interested in for this thread is Micro and Multitasking.
Argument.
Now while Liquidpedia defines Mechanics as non-strategical, I would make the argument that Mechanics is Strategy. It isn’t the whole of Strategy and so I wouldn’t say Strategy is Mechanics. But rather my Mechanics is a subset of Strategy. Or perhaps that Mechanics opens up new options for Strategy. With our Mechanics, we can plan new actions to fulfill our vision (Ultimately winning, but it could also apply to smaller goals along the way.)
See, what the people I quoted are arguing is that they want this great cerebral game. Where whoever thinks up the best strategy, is the one that wins. Rather than the one that clicks the fastest.
This very argument is one used by Supreme Commander 2 forum fans that dislike Starcraft 2. I’ve read several places where Starcraft 2 is referred as an APM spamfest. Once again the idea is, if only we can cut out the mechanical requirements, then we can have even more time to devise ingenious plans.
However, the problem then becomes, what can you do? What strategy is there really? Granted, I’m pretty newbie at SupCom2- I hate it too much to play much after figuring it’s mechanical limitations.
Using the arguments I quoted, Supreme Commander 2 should be THE most strategic game.
There is very mechanical requirement for production or resource collection. (Unless you can get to mass conversion.) Build an extractor and it will continue extracting for the rest of the game. You can queue of a cycle of units in a factory to endlessly produce units without ever going back to your base- though you may need to pause production to free up resources.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BM3QQ.jpg)
The RTS game I regret buying the most.
And army control! The army fights for you. Never mind smartcasting. How about an army that requires no commands in the middle of a battle? All that time to plan devious plots... or the other way of saying this...
You cannot control your armies.
Or rather the control you have is in pre-planning. Units have a gigantic turn radius, which means there is no rapid action control (premise). In fact, trying to target firing units proves a difficult challenge because the AI is so smart that only half will actually obey your commands. No amount of clicking will change their mind from their auto fighting.
You can set up attack runs for bombers, but the flight paths are so circuitous so as to prevent any rapid response retreat mid flight.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1LCl5.jpg)
You can really zoom out in SupCom2. When I’m in a bad mood, I sometimes feel this is the only view you need.
So in the end, it’s all about composition. With my friends, I made the second most units in the game and killed 10 units, lost 300 or so- that’s simply not possible in Starcraft unless you make pure workers and medivacs I simply made the wrong composition (1:1 air to air and air to ground) and was hard countered. There wasn’t any more use I could get out of the units, they just died. And once they were committed to battle, they were committed, the attack run is so lengthy, there is little hope of rapidly retreating. And even in retreat they have their own smart pathing that prevents me from microing them away from combat in the shortest route.
That’s the strategy. Scout the right tech path and counter with correct counter. Kill resource extractors. Kill commander. Kill whatever objective you happen to want. Multiple front engagements. Very little mechanical requirements.
And yet I feel I have nothing to do. I feel like my strategy options are limited. I can’t change the tide mid-battle.
Mechanics actually create strategic options.
I will grant you MBS and auto-mining. I don’t really care about those. I don’t want them in BW, but it’s not what I feel is holding back SC2 as a game.
Consider BW Mutalisk micro:
This is a mechanical skill as defined at the beginning. And it is a very difficult one. I can micro (sort of) but I can’t do that and build stuff at my base at the same time. It’s very demanding.
But it helps fulfill my premise- once I have mastered the mechanical skill of right click forward, h, right click back, then I can use this deadly pack of mutalisks like dagger point. I jab in and out of the base, hitting wherever there’s a weak spots. I can absolutely pick apart my friends with my muta micro and on iCCup, I get absolutely picked apart as my crisis management is often not up to the task.
It’s the same thing with dragoon micro.
It’s a mechanical skill to master hold position moving, attacking and retreating dragoons to keep them alive, doing damage. However, once the skill is learned, then you can use your new found mechanical skill as a tool to attack or defend aka strategy.
Last Friday I practiced game after game trying to beat an early push against vs marines, vultures with mines and a tank. It was all about unit control, while trying to continually build more units. And I needed that repetition because I hadn’t really ever built up the skill to defuse or avoid mines, snipe tanks, attack retreat back, gathering more troops and maybe sneaking out a shuttle to zealot bomb.
But once I have that skill, I will suddenly be able to use that very same skill for early game pushes. New strategic options can open up and not just early game. At any point, I can dragoon micro to get a little extra effectiveness out of the goons.
Or Reaver control
Difficult as anything. Mechanical skill. But once learned, it’s a tool that can pick apart an enemy. It is a mechanical skill that opens up entirely new strategy. It’s not just what you make, but how well you use it.
And this is where my frustration comes in. People dismiss the mechanical difficulty as getting in the way of strategy. That you need to do 30 pushups before you can click a unit forward. That it’s only about who clicks the most and not about who thinks the most.
Certainly Dragoons are kinda buggy and we don’t really need their bugginess in a new game. But they also have tremendous potential to be microed. In fact they can be quite precise and extremely effective. You need to know how to handle them, but once you do, they are yours to control. As opposed to auto-clumping that actively thwarts your micro efforts every step of the way. About as ‘smart’ ai as the SupCom2 flight paths.
Another example is something like smart-casting. I hate this because it has led to the nerfing one of one of my favourite units- high templar (well that and unit auto-clump.) But I guess we’re hoping that this will make things more strategic. We will have more time to do... what exactly?
Why stop there. Why not have autocast? Age of Mythology has auto cast for its Medusas. This would lessen the mechanical skill and allow the more cerebral player to win. Just make the right amount of high templar at the right time. Pre-position them before battle and let them do their work.
Or marines splits vs banelings and shoot and scoots. That’s all about who is the fastest. If we just auto-mated that, we would have even more time for strategy.
You know what would make this video even better? If marine splits were automated. More time to think up cool strategies don’t you know.
And even harassment. Just give some medivacs and some marines the orders “Harass” and they’ll auto fly/ split up to the 3 spots you indicated, auto-harass and then retreat when it becomes too dangerous. Assign units to their respective roles and let them act independently. You have more important, strategic things to think about.
Maybe a little extreme, but I’m trying to highlight this unfortunate idea that getting rid of mechanical requirements, the game will suddenly have more strategy because we will have more time to ponder. I feel like people arguing for a game, where if they think the right thoughts, they will win. That mechanics get in the way of their strategy. When in fact, the mechanics open up entirely new arsenal that will now inform your strategy.
So you use, your muta micro to keep them back on their back feet while you expand behind it. Or you use you vulture micro to drop their worker and zergling count while you reinforce your army behind it.
Conclusion:
RTS strategy (of the kind I prefer) is not simply what you make and when you attack and from what angle, but how well you use your units during the entire battle. Mechanics are not an arbitrary hindrance that prevent you from doing what you want to be doing. Often mechanics is what you want to be doing. Free up macro time with MBS so you have MORE time to cast storms like Jangbi, muta micro like Jaedong, etc.
And I REALLY loathe SupCom2
Addendum:
Vulture micro
Marines vs Lurkers
Mutalisks vs Scourge/ Chinese Triangle
