EPTOn November 25 2025 02:59 stenole wrote:
"Should" is a very restrictive word that implies a dogmatic view of the genre. I think in general it seems like people have a very constrained view of what an RTS is or isn't. I think for BW specifically, tower rushes have enriched the game. It means that no matter how mapped out the game is, players can't be fully complacent and autopilot the early game.
More "modern" RTS games seem to struggle with cheese elements because mechanical execution plays a smaller part. It becomes a purely a build order vs build order situation where one person wins or loses where the only thing that can change anything is is one person is lacking game knowledge. It's a blind strategy win just like winning a round of rock-paper-scissors. Good developers will naturally make the changes to the game needed for these kinds of interactions not to happen, for example removing tower rushes. The game's inability to support it should signal a problem though. An RTS that is all about decisions is really just a pure strategy game.
"Should" is a very restrictive word that implies a dogmatic view of the genre. I think in general it seems like people have a very constrained view of what an RTS is or isn't. I think for BW specifically, tower rushes have enriched the game. It means that no matter how mapped out the game is, players can't be fully complacent and autopilot the early game.
More "modern" RTS games seem to struggle with cheese elements because mechanical execution plays a smaller part. It becomes a purely a build order vs build order situation where one person wins or loses where the only thing that can change anything is is one person is lacking game knowledge. It's a blind strategy win just like winning a round of rock-paper-scissors. Good developers will naturally make the changes to the game needed for these kinds of interactions not to happen, for example removing tower rushes. The game's inability to support it should signal a problem though. An RTS that is all about decisions is really just a pure strategy game.
To be fair, scouting with your worker is a distinctly "Blizzard" design element. If you think about it, it's not necessarily intuitive that a unit whose primary function is mining and building would have some of the faster movement speed in the game. In any game where this isn't the case, where workers/constructors move more slowly than military units, you proportionally nerf tower rushing. Also, the degree to which buildings and resource collection are dispersed across wider swaths of the map also affects viability of tower rushing.
Does designing away from tower rushing necessarily neuter early aggression? Not at all. It's just that in Blizzard games bases are distinctly built around highly concentrated resource distributions and builders move quickly. That definitely doesn't imply that any game that doesn't include tower rushing is less mechanically rewarding.
