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Would you prefer that an RTS like Starcraft be more focused on APM, or the player's strategy? I had an argument about this many years ago with a friend.
I was saying that SC would be a better game if it wasn't focused on micro (which is essentially clicking speed & precision) and macro, and had more emphasis on the position & decision making of the players involved (like chess).
Thinking about it recently, I've considered a few contrary points, though. APM & mechanics influencing the gameplay is good because it allows players to improve more through practice. A person of below average intelligence, or without a lot of strategic knowledge, can still excel in SC2 through raw practice alone solely by mastering mechanics.
Thoughts?
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Since i'm not really a creative player i guess i would love a more focused game on APM / mechanics 
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a game with enough depth for both things to be labelled a style, with the best players being able to be very good at both.
right now it feels like the mechanical aspect of the game is caped, and that the decision making doesn't have enough depth.
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You dont have to be genius or even with average intelligence to play sc2 though. SC2 is designed for everyone and people with bad mechanics can be GM with good strategy or someone with great mechanics with bad strategy can also be GM. You just wont be able to go pro, but you wont necessarily be terrible.
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From an extreme bias towards liking BW as "the best RTS ever", I find that having incredibly difficult mechanics while having incredibly intricate strategy is beyond mind-blowing.
If either is too easy, the game itself becomes easy-street.
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Obviously there has to be a good balance between those two things so both hardcore practice and smart strategic thinking are rewarded with a little bit more emphasis on mechanics (a player with better mechanics should most of the time win).
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I certainly think SC2 should be harder mechanically because it makes it more impressive to watch players that master these mechanics but that said it's a strategy game and good decision making/strategy always have and always will be the most important factor in being successful.
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IMO APM allows you to pull of more complicated strategies, like multi pronged harass combined with expanding. So APM goes with strategy depth and to reach certain level you need to improve both of it.
Still seeing new strategies or new adaptations seem cooler for me. So i vote strategy more.
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A balance between the two is nice.
Being a mechanical monster has its great uses, but if you don't have the creative aptitude alongside it, you're more likely to lose when it comes to facing top tier opponents.
This is why players like Life are a step above a lot of top tier pros.
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Importance and depth of strategy is always good imo (in an RTS anyway), I also like combat-micro/apm but macro mechanics shouldn't keep up too much time but be more about strategy than execution
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I just recently picked up Company Of Heroes 1+expacs on steam for 13$, as I was playing them i realized how much more important tactical and micro commands were then just "macroing out new units" like sc2, it is def more a micro based game as opposed to a good balance of Brood War where micro (all-ins, reaver drops, storm drops, etc.) can overcome macro, but macro can also over come micro(no use getting 30+ kills on 1 unit only to have it run over by 5 control groups).
Most RTS lend themselves to only 1 very well while the other takes a back seat(Supreme Commander is definitely a good example of a more macro oriented RTS with backseat micro, while Company Of Heroes is more a micro oriented RTS with back seat macro). Brood War is the only game I've ever seen do both correctly, SC2 is getting there but for every step it seems to take, it takes steps back more then it does forward.
That said, you can't execute certain strategies if your mechanics are shit(try executing sair/reaver pvz without constantly baby sitting the shuttle so it doesn't explode to scourge, targeting reaver's shots, running corsairs from scourge and macroing all at the same time. Also this is why a ton of people failed doing the "Bisu Dark Templar FE" build right after he first unveiled it against savior because they'd lose their dark templars to stupid shit and then get over-run because the zerg took a macro advantage.
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ok, so lets count the seconds until this turns into a BW>SC2 thread 
honestly, both parts are necessary to create a good rts because they tend to interact with each other.
what i think to be important is that there are different occasions when apm is necessary.
for example, i really like the new auto-split in hots, and while it clearly (but not really significantly) reduces the apm, it just means we can concentrate on more important things (and on pro-lvl it doesnt matter, because every pro should be able to perform that!).
but their are other examples were apm is important and interacts with decision making: if you compare terran bio and terran mech, while bio probably needs more apm to split your units to maximize their cost-effectiveness, mech relies more on the positioning of your units (saying this as a protoss-player, hope it's not THAT wrong), so both things matter.
imo, the hardest part is to balance the amount of both "resources" to create an entertaining game. if SC2 does this right, i dont want to decide, there are enough people complaining about too less micro compared to BW.
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On December 30 2012 03:50 Toxi78 wrote:
a game with enough depth for both things to be labelled a style, with the best players being able to be very good at both.
right now it feels like the mechanical aspect of the game is caped, and that the decision making doesn't have enough depth.
The mechanical aspect of the game is faaaar from capped, and just can't be capped. There's just no limit to what you can do mechanically, you've got 130+ supply to micro, there's positionning, scouting, flanking, multi-prong, spells to cast, spells to dodge, injects/mules/chrono boost, doing the most precise macro you can do, It just can't be reached, there's always more to improve on.
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Honestly for either BW or SC2, you don't need to have a high level of strategic understanding to be a good player. Most everyone just mimics pro players blindly and follow BOs created by other players. The only matchups that actually require strategic skill for non-pros are zvz/tvt in BW and tvt in SCII.
Also, I don't want to turn this into SC2 vs BW but its worth noting that SC2 strategy revolves more around superior builds, timing attacks, and army composition; whereas I feel BW strategy is more focused on psychological maneuvering and army positioning. Not to say that one type is necessarily better than the other, but its a reflection of SCII's "deathball-winner-takes-all" gameplay in most non-tvt matchups.
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We do have both, our maps just suck still and our players in the larger scope of things do too.
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It depends on what kind of micro. There is good micro and bad micro. Things like having to select individual buildings to build, or limitations of 'control' that doesn't add to the game itself shouldn't be considered competitive IMO. Of course, all things have limitations, but when it becomes a distraction or barrier before the actual game, I don't think it is relevant to anything other than annoyance. I think skill should mean more than annoying APM and moreso APM that adds to decision making and gameplay.
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when I was younger I really liked wc3 and Coh for the microheavy way to play them, nowadays I cant stand CoH, the RNG, the slow way to play it etc, much more prefer mechanics and apm, while it shouldnt be too hard, in an RTS I feel that simply overwhelming somebody needs to be a viable strategy.
Of course I still enjoy microing in sc2, and to be honest I feel that (at least for me) sc2 has the perfect balance between micro and macro (I'd love if the ground army mechanics were improved in order to open up for more micro but hey, cant get everything)
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I prefer games where you can micro and need a good strategic decision making. So for my tastes Sc2 is a bit better then bw, but not enough as macro is still rewarded more, then micro.
Strategy is in everything though in your macro your micro and your decision making and mechanics of course. So you can't really divide it. It is really important to set the importance of macro and micro in one game. BW is basically just macro and everything else if you have time. Warcraft 3 is alot of micro, but the macro still fills quiet a portion. Dawn of War2 reduced the macro to almost non existance, but still to a point where it matters. All games are quiet good and entertaining.
Sc2 sticks to the Broodwar bit of macro being important, but reduces it to a level where micro also plays a role. A Terran won't be able to spend 80% of their control time in their base and macro, they will have to micro in most situations. I think it was good to go this way. (though I also dislike 3 base being optimal)
But of course the hardcore macro or micro persons will not find their fun in sc2. But those are the essential design decisions that can barely be altered if a game progressed this far already.
Also I wouldn't call someone less intelligent, that is able to decide if he wants to magic box and move hold position. Or simply attack move or maybe patrol split etc or do some stop targetfire.
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Falling has made a GREAT blog about this : http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=322084
Broodwar is more mechanically demanding than SC2. Supreme commander 2 is even less mechanically demanding. In fact with supcom2 you cannot control your armies, and you can make a factory produce an unit continuously for the rest of the game ( infinite queuing, just click once and it'll keep making that unit ).
So when you can't control your army ( no micro ) and macro is close to being non existent then what is left ? Army composition. Nothing more nothing less. I made unit A he made unit B; unit B counters unit A so i guess i lost.
I belive what you are thinking about only works in a predeployed game, i'm thinking anything from advance wars to total war. This just doesn't suit the classical RTS genre.
tldr : read falling's blog.
edit : edited to make it easier to read
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EPT
