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I've been playing RTS games for a while. I started in around 1997, with Command & Conquer: Red Alert. I've played many different types of RTS games, and I've seen many companies known for RTS games die, leaving only one real RTS developer: Blizzard. Essentially, I've seen RTS done so many ways that I'm more open to gameplay elements that would be unacceptable in SC2.
I've been playing RTS games longer than some Korean pros have been alive. Please don't give me a condescending answer which questions my skill and experience at the game. I want honest answers, preferably backed by facts (honest opinions are also welcome).
I stopped playing Starcraft 1 in around 2001. That was before the rise of Starcraft in South Korea. I was completely ignorant of Starcraft esports until around late 2005. That year, Age of Empires 3 was released, and the best player then was iamgrunt (I am Grunt). I actually ran into him on the ladder and got completely crushed. Running into a South Korean progamer on the ladder made me curious, and I discovered that Starcraft had somehow grown into a legitimate sport that was played in actual sports stadiums.
Perhaps the most shocking thing to me, as a player, was that the game I played in high school was completely different from what I was seeing on stream. Island maps were gone, there were no team games, and everyone started with a free expansion, known as a natural expansion in SC2 slang. The last one was what I found most disconcerting.
In most RTS games, you cannot get away with expanding before training a few military units first.
In Warcraft 3, for example, all expansions are guarded by neutral creeps who will kill your worker if you try to expand without killing them first.
In C&C-style games, creating an extra harvestery or refinery is a huge investment: 1400 for a new harvester, or 2000 for a new refinery (which comes with a free harvester, so it's only 600 credits). Basic infantry in C&C games cost 100 credits, so this would be the equivalent of Starcraft workers costing 350 minerals each.
And finally, in Age of Empires, resources are all outside your base. There are buildings which generate unlimited resources, but they are very inefficient compared to resources outside your base (they're safer since you can build them in your base, but they produce much less than going out and taking map resources.
From my perspective as a longtime RTS player, it feels like the no rush 20 minutes crowd are now in charge of the game. All builds are some variant of Boom, with Rush and Tech/Turtle builds being completely nonviable (generally, Tech gets pwned by Boom, and Boom is so strong in SC2 that Rush can't keep it in check).
Anyway, my main question is why do natural expansions exist? Why do Starcraft players get a freebie expansion that's a no-brainer to defend? Why is it okay for town hall first builds (CC first, Nexus first, Hatchery first) to exist? Why aren't there any maps where a one-base build is viable, and taking a second base is not guaranteed? Why are Starcraft maps so big?
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this is something that kind of surprised me when i first came into starcraft 2 with a warcraft 3 background (and a little bit of C&C and AoE/AoM). but i guess i just kind of accepted it as a difference between the games very quickly.
i think you pose a very interesting question here though, and perhaps this could be inspiration for map makers to try some new stuff.
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learn to macro
User was warned for this post
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Bisutopia19223 Posts
Natural expansions are far from free in Brood War. It is a real test in your ability to read and predict your opponent. Taking a natural at the wrong time has dire consequences. A second base always will be taken, no matter how you design a map a natural is your default best second base. Brood war just designs it so you have a slightly easier to take natural, but still can be rewarded/punished based on what I've said.
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its just balance, zerg has terrible 1 basing in both BW and SC2 and would straight up get murdered with no natural
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There is no simple answer. The evolution of StarCraft II as a game has a lot to do with it. In the beginnings of Wings of LIberty there was plenty of one base play, and Protoss v Protoss was for the most part this way all the way through hots.
One base plays still exist in Legacy of the Void but not very common. Also you start with more workers and some of the mineral patches have way less minerals, so the developer (Blizzard) is designing the game to promote expanding and defending.
Turtle play became a thing in WoL and Hots and they looked to changed that. Still doesn't answer your specific question of the natural expansions, but thats the best I can offer.
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Because of zerglings: Fast moving units that can be produced extremely quickly and beat all other tier 1 units in the early game if they can surround them.
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The main reason for this in SC2 is the variety of matchups. Making expanding early viable in some matchups makes it very easy in others. I don't know how much you have been around for the different stages of SC2, but the WoL was a lot of 1-base plays, in particular in PvP expanding early meant you could as well press alt+f4 and go cry in a corner. Then maps evolved, strategies evolved and also the rules changed. But even in LoTV, CC first is not clearly cool in TvT on many maps and 1-base ZvZ builds are still pretty OK.
Why don't we want everything to be 1-base vs. 1-base for a longer time? Because SC2 gets more interesting when the players are forced to defend many locations at once. Then maybe players could start with 2 bases off the bat, but the fact that 1-base builds are sometimes somewhat viable increases the variability of the game, so why not?
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You can actually do 1 base builds in sc2, so your version of tech and rush can work. But generally the game was designed in a way, that the more bases you have, the harder it can be to defend them,and since there is no far distance resource gathering here it makes attacking viable. Things like boom(=greed) tech and rush still exist, but its more about how fast your build take those bases, as keeping up with macro is important.
Good examples are CC first / Reaper expand / 3Rax reaper into double expand/ 1-1-1 into expand.
Most strategies are just a bit more varied than to explain them with 1 word.
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The rather plain variant of an answer would be that Starcraft 2 was designed for it and taking that aspect away at this point, or basically any point of Starcraft 2 after Wings of Liberty release, would have caused insurmountable balance problems and very poor gameplay, without massive design changes.
In all honesty, I think one of the main reasons why CnC never succeeded was the very bad economy model in all the games. You start with tons of money which means you get free boom, tech or rush choices. But after that unless you have chosen boom the game becomes incredibly slow and boring and you never can create your fantasy armies.
Serious games get stuck in early game unit spams and sometimes even hilarious base sell strategies to afford more units before you are dry.
The way the SC2 economy works - which includes easy access to second and somewhat easy access to third bases - is that you have to mix tech, economy and production regardless of what you plan to do later on in the early game. This guarantees a certain build-up in the game, which brings the game closer to the RTS-fantasy of creating bases and sending armies to battles.
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On March 09 2016 07:27 Ctone23 wrote:
There is no simple answer. The evolution of StarCraft II as a game has a lot to do with it. In the beginnings of Wings of LIberty there was plenty of one base play, and Protoss v Protoss was for the most part this way all the way through hots.
One base plays still exist in Legacy of the Void but not very common. Also you start with more workers and some of the mineral patches have way less minerals, so the developer (Blizzard) is designing the game to promote expanding and defending.
Turtle play became a thing in WoL and Hots and they looked to changed that. Still doesn't answer your specific question of the natural expansions, but thats the best I can offer.
I remember PvP 4gate wars in WoL. I had a lot of fun in WoL with its much smaller maps where you couldn't simply expand right away, and cheese was much more powerful (and more rewarding to repel). Even though the 4gate meta made PvP stale and boring, I liked how you simply could not expand before building up an army. Also, the first one to expand and not have his expansion contested generally won the game (it was a high-risk, high reward move).
Larger maps like Tal'Darim Altar crept into the ladder, followed by other large maps and maps with long walk distances. It wasn't long after this that I lost interest in Starcraft 2. It didn't help that DotA 2 became more widely available in 2013, and my friends list dwindled into oblivion. I was playing a lonely game while the rest of my friends were having lots of fun playing DotA.
Nowadays, the maps all feel "samey." There's one, easily defensible entrance, and one or two easily defensible natural expansions. The maps are all huge, and even the smaller maps have long walk distances. I'm not saying these maps shouldn't exist, but these maps shouldn't be the only ones that exist. There should be one-base maps, maps with ridiculous walk distances, standard maps, everything in between. It feels like Blizzard is too afraid to shake up the meta, too afraid to disrupt the conventions of this glorious esport known as Starcraft.
On March 09 2016 07:29 opisska wrote:
The main reason for this in SC2 is the variety of matchups. Making expanding early viable in some matchups makes it very easy in others. I don't know how much you have been around for the different stages of SC2, but the WoL was a lot of 1-base plays, in particular in PvP expanding early meant you could as well press alt+f4 and go cry in a corner. Then maps evolved, strategies evolved and also the rules changed. But even in LoTV, CC first is not clearly cool in TvT on many maps and 1-base ZvZ builds are still pretty OK.
Why don't we want everything to be 1-base vs. 1-base for a longer time? Because SC2 gets more interesting when the players are forced to defend many locations at once. Then maybe players could start with 2 bases off the bat, but the fact that 1-base builds are sometimes somewhat viable increases the variability of the game, so why not?
Is that true? That might bring me back to the game. I won't abandon DotA for it, but I might play it from time to time. Are there any disproportionately effective one-base builds in LotV? I play Random, so it can be for any race.
As for 1-base vs. 1-base, I obviously don't want to force all games to be like this. I just want some variety in the game. From your perspective as dedicated Starcraft 2 players, there might be a lot of variety in SC2 right now, but from my perspective as a longtime RTS player who played Terran before we had Medics, it looks to me that macro > all.
On March 09 2016 07:32 Senkii wrote:
You can actually do 1 base builds in sc2, so your version of tech and rush can work. But generally the game was designed in a way, that the more bases you have, the harder it can be to defend them,and since there is no far distance resource gathering here it makes attacking viable. Things like boom(=greed) tech and rush still exist, but its more about how fast your build take those bases, as keeping up with macro is important.
Good examples are CC first / Reaper expand / 3Rax reaper into double expand/ 1-1-1 into expand.
Most strategies are just a bit more varied than to explain them with 1 word.
Links to 1-base build guides and videos?
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Sc2 was not designed for this, a natural expansion just means the base were you "naturally expand" its just the base closest to your spawn location.
At the start of the game it is not designed for being expanded to like a "free" base, when Blizzard released SC2 they did not know how the meta would evolve. Getting a free base without building any uses was not design but it has become meta. Thats how all rts games works, the company puts the game in the hands of thousands and everyone will try to sharpen their game which makes certain tendencies stand out.
Through knowing what builds the enemies can do (the most aggressive rushes/cheeses) and experimenting with how to hold them do the meta evolve into slowly getting more and more macro focused. Thats how all rts works as well, the longer the times goes the more the game gets figured out and people realize how greedy they can be while still being able to hold rushes. In sc2 there are very intricate things that adds to this like building placement and to start building units and cancell them if the enemy doesn't rush. Yolu have to agree its devilishly clever, you start building a zealot and if you need it you finish it and if you don't you cancel and focus eco. At the start of sc2 no one was walling in, which meant eco builds was basically impossible for T and P.
Bottomline is, this is the natural evolution of all RTS games, they gravitate towards macro unless patches changes the playing field or wonky maps effect the balance. I also want to add that no base are free, holding cheeses with nexus/cc first or triple hatch is hard as fuck, its not "free".
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On March 09 2016 07:23 Ej_ wrote:
its just balance, zerg has terrible 1 basing in both BW and SC2 and would straight up get murdered with no natural
More specifically you can't keep up with early pressure from T/P in BW while maintaining equal economy since they can constantly build workers while you're larva starved. Highly cost efficient sunkens let you get drones and use excess minerals to get more hatch/tech/defense
Zerg had better larva rates at one point but then 2 hatch hydra was too strong rofl
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It makes for better gameplay. Starcraft is a game of expanding and defending expansions. Expansions need to only have a finite amount of resources to force players to continually expand and find new resources as they deplete older ones. However, a main base that has the same amount of resources as a standard expansion runs out too quick and makes the early game last too long. A natural expansion is a dynamic way of making a bigger "main" base that is not totally risk free.
You could see this better in BW, where Korean mapmakers were freer to make nonstandard expansion sizes. You had mineral only expansions, smaller expansions, bigger expansions, two expansions close together that can almost be defended like one (usually with at least one of them being smaller than average), double geysers.. Blizzard made SC2 worse in this regard by designing the game around even safer naturals and attempting to homogenize expansion sizes and yields (other than gold bases).
I played the games you mentioned and many of them frequently ended because one side gets to secure an expansion first. It's easier to come back down 2 bases to 3 compared to down 1 base to 2.
They could do the same thing by making a bigger main but natural expansion is what the Koreans decided on.
Also, several posters already mentioned the zerg. Their economy and unit producing works out differently and this is a necessary balancing factor to let them expand faster.
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Zerglings is the one word answer
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I think past 2000 when broodwar was grinded into becoming what it is/what SC2 is today, players and map makers tried various stuff regarding maps.
It ended up that players and spectators enjoyed more the macro orientated games that favour long battles, the ability to rebuild and lots of production and fights, over other things such as islands or 1 base play which pushed slower and less forgiving games. That could be a reason of the success of fastest maps too.
The more interesting point in BW vs Age of Empires/C&C/Total Annihilation maps is also the common "main base with 1 choke point" thing which is mandatory to not break the balance.
There is no such free protection in Age of Empires. So BW maps that were designed around 1 base play or Islands offered less resources, but good defensive positions, leading to slower games.
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taking the 1st expansion is the highest proportional jump in economy throughout the whole game - up to a full 100% increase in income. this means that the largest potential instability or "imbalance" between players can occur in the early game, but you actually want to minimize this instability so games don't all end early. so the solution is to make the expansion easy to take so that both players have a high chance to stay on equal economic footing and the game can continue.
the 2nd expansion can be easier to contest since it creates only a 50% increase in income, so delaying it by a couple minutes (or even losing it) isn't necessarily a game ending blow, even if still very significant. the proportional worth of future bases continues to decrease as you take more, so later bases can be even easier to attack.
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Natural expansion just means that there is one expansion spot on the map that is the most natural to take.
A map without one is one that has 'two natural expansions'.
Making it relatively easy to defend means you can opt to take the expansion earlier. This means there are more different strategies and there is more divergent gameplay.
Without it, there is tech and rush. With it, there is expand, tech or rush. Adding one more degree of freedom actually increases all the possible game paths by a lot.
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EPT
