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I have a Dream!
Sometimes I get dreamy and I like to let my imagination run free a bit. Recently I've dreamed up of a new RTS which I would love to see. It won't happen, but that's OK I guess. The RTS I've played in the past have been Total Annihilation, Age of Empires 3 and now SC2. I've dabbled with BW a bit, as well some of the Total War series. I've played LoL and some Dota2. I also tried to like Age of Empires Online, but after a while I simply stopped and cursed Robot Entertainment for what it did to the Age of Empires franchise.
Anyway this dream RTS would take place during the Feudal Era, up to about the 1700's. This would be about the same time period as Age of Empires II and indeed, this game would ressemble AoC (for short) greatly in terms of the kind of units used but quite different in many other aspects. None of that magic, spells and wizard bullshit. A real, historic game. I'm going to jump right into it! Here's a quick summary of this blog post:
I. Units & Micro
II. Economy & Buildings
III. Civilizations & Maps
IV. Outside the game
I. Units & Micro
The way units will work in this game will be quite similar to the way units worked in Age of Empires 3. There will be a hard counter system (perhaps softer for some units: as this is a dream RTS, there's no way to be 100% sure that it's properly designed) based on unit type.
The unit types are Ranged Infantry, Heavy Infantry (melee), Spear Infantry (melee), Heavy Cavalry (melee), Light Cavalry and Siege Units. I shall give a quick overview as to what they are and their counters. Depending on what kind of units they are: they have a certain "group ability". More on that later. Also note that units of a certain type will stay in a neat formation together when moving. When in formation, those units will travel slightly faster.
Ranged Infantry:
As their name implies, they're ranged. They deal damage from a distance with Bows, Crossbows, etc. They're nimble units but quite fragile.
As a group ability, "Volley" is when all Ranged Infantry units selected fire at the same time, causing AoE damage in a certain area (think Psionic Storm).
They counter Spear Infantry and Light Cavalry.
They're countered by Heavy Cavalry.
Heavy Infantry:
They're resilient melee infantry. They fight on foot with swords, axes, maces, whatever you want. They would be a bit slower than Ranged Infantry and are almost unparalled in melee combat.
For their group ability, Heavy Infantry positioned in their movement formation will "Charge" forward all together. Think of it as a gap closer.
They counter Spear Infantry.
They're countered by Heavy Cavalry.*
*Note that Ranged units soft counter HI by design. There's no way to be sure, but perhaps RI should also hard-counter HI. The idea being that RI caught in a melee fight with HI are fucking dead. Not sure if this is a design mistake or not.
Spear Infantry:
Infantry fighting with spears (halberds, pikes, or bill hooks...). These are guys who are basically anti-cav, which is really important in this game. They're also tough melee units however their damage is lacking against anything that isn't a mounted fighter. They're more nimble than Heavy Infantry.
Their group ability would make for some very interesting fights: all based around positioning. Basically they can "Stand Ground". They become immobile but they form a wall of pikes. This is the "counter ability" to that of the Heavy Infantry but also Heavy Cavalry's..
They counter Heavy Cavalry and Light Cavalry.
They are countered by Heavy Infantry and Ranged Infantry.
Heavy Cavalry:
They're the mounted warriors, they're resilient, fast and deal out some nasty damage. In a straight up fight, only Spear Infantry do well against them. Note that while they counter Heavy Infantry, it'll take longer for them to kill Heavy Infantry than Ranged Infantry. Due to being so powerful, Spearmen do exceptionally well against them.
Their group ability can be devasting. Like Heavy Infantry, they can charge together, however they charge in a triangle formation it can deal absolutely tremendous damage to group of enemy units. The only true counter to this sort of charge other than good splitting is a line of Spearmen in their Stand Ground stance, in which case the charging Cavalry is obliterated.
They counter Ranged Infantry, Heavy Infantry and Light Cavalry.
They are countered by Spear Infantry.
Light Cavalry:
Also mounted fighters, they're a bit faster than Heavy Cavalry and are the fastest unit type of the game. They come in two sub-types.
The first kind is a melee light cavalry unit (think Hussars). They excel at attacking weak targets, ie villagers and Ranged Infantry. They are weak against everything else. Relatively fragile, they're still fast and are excellent raiding units.
The other kind is Ranged Light Cavalry. Their strength is in their speed and ability to attack from a distance; they don't hard counter any unit type in particular. They're kind of a soft counter unit against melee units as they can hit and run efficiently. Ranged Infantry do well against ranged Light Cavalry.
The group ability of Light Cavalry is the ability to "Pillage"; they do bonus damage to buildings for a short duration of time.
Unsure of group ability for Ranged Light Cav.
Light Cav counter Ranged Infantry
Light Cav are countered by everything else
Ranged Light Cav are countered by Ranged Infantry
Ranged Light Cav soft counter everything else.
Siege Units:
These are nothing special. Just trebuchets and catapults and whatever the fuck else you want; they just fuck up buildings from afar. They're fragile and expensive, etc. You just need these kinds of units against people who turtle. I think it could be interesting to have Siege units do AoE damage and hence be efficient against light units.
Other abilities:
I think it would also be interesting for Heavy Infantry, Heavy Cavalry and Spear Infantry to have shields. This goes hand in hand with the resilience they have compared to lighter units, but a unique active for shield bearers would be a counter to the Ranged Infantry's volley. In return for a huge loss of mobility, these kinds of units could raise their shields and take highly reduced ranged damage.
All military units have a "morale" bar. Basically, every enemy unit that dies close to a unit will increase morale, every friendly unit that dies decreases morale. Morale in itself gives slight boosts to a unit's combat ability (whether attack, resilience or whatever).
Another aspect is that any unit that gains a kill gets a small boost to attack and HP, as well a morale that lowers less quickly than that of a green unit. So having a group of units that have been micro'd well will make them overall more effective (obviously not to the point where they can fight their counter unit). These are veteran units.
The entire concept based around hard-counters is that fights become a micro fest based around proper positioning and good use of the different abilities the units have. This is largely inspired by the way fights played out in Age of Empires 3, the micro was absolutely necessary if you wanted to win fights. In the case of "group" abilities, it's to add zest to fights.
Allow me to give a quick example of how fights would play out in early-game AoE3. This may allow some people unfamiliar with the game to perhaps understand how hard-counter units fight. Typically in the very early game you would get out two types of units. Optimally, you want 3 types so as to complete the "counter circle".
+ Show Spoiler +Anyway, let's examine the three types of units seen in early colonial (early game). These are Ranged Infantry, Heavy Infantry and melee Cav (or RI, HI, Cav for short; also RI counters HI, HI counters Cav and Cav counters RI). These lead to three different combos which counter each other early game (all tried and tested when I still played the game). RI/HI counters HI/Cav. This is because with proper micro, the RI/HI player can fire a volley at the HI. As soon as Cav comes to attack the RI, the RI/HI player brings out his own HI to counter the Cav all while making sure his infantry stays away from the enemy HI of the HI/Cav player. After a while, the HI/Cav player will run out of HI because the HI can't match the mobility of the Cav and the Cav can't engage the RI without running into HI of the HI/RI combo. However, the RI/HI combo is countered by the RI/Cav combo. How you may ask? Basically the RI/HI player doesn't have the mobility to truly engage the RI/Cav player. If he tries to bring his HI forward to engage, they're picked off quickly by the RI of the RI/Cav player. If he tries to fight RI vs RI, the RI/Cav player brings out his Cav to scare away the enemy RI, who are forced to retreat and bring out their HI to defend the RI. This means that either the RI/Cav player will get free volleys on either the enemy RI or the enemy HI. In this case, the RI/HI player will have his all of his HI eventually picked off at range at which point the RI/Cav player can freely engage the remaining RI. Finally, HI/Cav counters RI/Cav. It's actually quite simple, all the HI/Cav player has to do is engage RI/Cav army directly. This is straightforward a-moving. The RI/Cav player has no real answer to the enemy Cav so in a straight up fight, the HI/Cav combo will win the Cav vs Cav fight. The remaining Cav after that fight will simply engage the RI and win the fight. Nothing more to it. These situations occur quite early in the game, they're the first fights. The player with the inferior combo simply gives up map control until he can get out his third unit type, or until he ages (basically teching) to get superior Fortress units. If you're interested in reading more about Aoe3 and how it worked, I've included a guide written by my friend from Aoe3 who was good enough to be the equivalent of a Code A player back then; only a small notch under the very best. Interestingly enough, the best player ever from Aoe3 was iamgrunt, a Korean.. Here is the guide: AoE3 Explained.pdfThe small section about Aoe3 was written so as to explain the mechanics of the counter system I would like to see again in "my" RTS, but it also served as a way to talk about my favorite RTS. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/87X6KRk.jpg) Nostalgia
II. Economy & Buildings
Resources:
The way economy plays out in this game will be similar to two other games; I wonder if some people will figure out which two. Here's how it works:
There are 5 resources. They are Grain, Wood, Currency, Manpower and Horses. That's a lot no? Well it's even more complicated than just gathering and spending and the resources are pretty intimately linked to each other.
Let's say we have 5 Peasants farming Grain. They will generate a certain amount of Grain per minute. Let's just say they'll generate 250 Grain every minute. Now, the Grain is gathered and stockpiled, but it's also being drained at a certain rate. That's because every minute, the villagers are draining a certain amount of Grain, at a rate of 10 Grain a minute (for example). So all 5 Peasants are draining 50 Grain a minute. So we have 200 Grain being stockpiled every minute as we have enough Grain income to easily support 5 peasants. Excess Grain? We can afford to spend 50 (or 100?) Grain to train another Peasant. 100 of the stockpiled Grain is spent and we now have 6 Peasants, an income of 190 Grain/minute and an extra villager we can put to work.
Similarly, military units drain Grain and Currency, horses (ie mounted military units) drain an extra amount of Grain and heavy units drain a bit more Currency, etc.
The focus of economic management is making sure our income is good enough to sustain a population of civil and military units. If our income is sufficient, we can stockpile enough resources to have our population grow as stockpiled resources can be used to train new units. This leads us to our two, unique, resources: Manpower and Horses.
Here is how it works. Our Forum will generate the resource we call Manpower. Manpower is generated regularly by the Forum and it will stock up Manpower. Let's imagine you have 10 Manpower stockpiled. When you train a Peasant at the Forum, you train him at the cost of 50 Grain and 1 Manpower. Infantry units cost 1 Manpower as well and Cavalry units will cost 1 Manpower as well as 1 Horse. Horses, as a resource, are generated by a Stable, which you have to build to start Horse production.
Now, the use of Manpower and Horses as a resource is that it allows great flexibility in terms of unit production. Rather than have one building that makes a certain unit one a time, with queues, you have one building who uses up Manpower to make a certain amount of units at the same time. There's a cap as to how many units you can make at the same time however. For example, an early game Barracks might be able to produce 3 units at a time (consuming 3 Manpower), but later in the game, with upgrades, a Barracks can produce 8 units at a time.
So it's possible to boom (power up economy) quickly by producing a lot of villagers or have a big wave of low tier units early on. This makes scouting important as you want to be able to punish greedy play or prepare for a rush.
Manpower and Horses are both generated by Forums and Stables respectively. They have a cap which can be raised by building additional Forums or Stables.
In terms of "Supply", Houses still need to be built for population space. This is fairly straightforward so I won't delve into it too much, though I think it's better if Manpower generation and stockpiling aren't limited by population space. Meaning if you attain the population cap 100/100, then you Manpower continues to be generated until it attains its limit.
Back to income. As said before, you need to have a certain amount of Grain income to sustain an army. Let's imagine you get raided and you lose a lot of villagers. Suddenly, your income becomes insufficient to keep up with the resource drain of your army. Your stockpiled resources will start to go down and once your Grain hits 0, random units will start losing health and then start dying.
If it's your Currency that hits 0, then it's the morale of units that will go down.
Production of Resources:
Grain is almost exclusively gathered from Farms. Farms are built at the cost of a little Grain and some Wood. A villager on the farm will produce an infinite amount of Grain at a certain income. However, the terrain on which you build your Farm will affect the income it generates. Some terrain is more fertile than other terrain. Overall, there should be three levels of fertilty for Terrain. The best level of fertility will give really good production, then there's Average and then there's Poor. The Fertile terrain will be spread around the map, encouraging players to obtain and fight for map control.
You can also put two villagers on a single farm; this will double productivity. However, this can only be done sporadically because doing this for a long enough time will render the terrain under the farm to "poor" in terms of fertility. This means you can play defensively if need be, but not for prolonged periods of time. Putting two Villagers on a single Farm can only be done on Fertile terrain.
Around the map, Berries are scattered, these can be used to generate food income for free for a limited amount of time (ie until all the food in the berries have been consumed). There will always be some Berries close to your Forum at the start of the game.
Similarly, Currency is produced by spice farms, or olive orchards. The principle is the same as Grain production but the turnover is a bit lower than that of Grain.
There are mines embedded in the mountains on the map as a source of Currency early game, just like berries. More on mountains later.
Another means to achieve income is to use Caravans which are units that travel between Forums and/or Trade Posts. As long as the Caravan is moving towards its destination, it is generating either Grain or Currency. Trade Posts are neutral buildings on the edge of the map which serve as destinations for Caravans. Caravans travel between Forums and Trade Posts, generating income. A caravan which has been stopped also stops generating resources. Caravans can also move from Forum to Forum, though it generate less resources (these routes are safer).
Last of all, we can talk about Wood, which is going to be fairly straight-forward. Buildings will cost Wood to make (the more important buildings will also cost Currency and Grain) and Wood is gathered from the trees on the map. Wood is a finite resource on the map. However there will be a lot so you can't really wood starve your opponent. Forests will serve as natural walls (just like in AoC). Nothing drains Wood and Wood income isn't relevant, it's simply stockpiled.
Buildings
As for the buildings themselves, I've alluded to them somewhat in this section before. It's the standard stuff:
Forums: Generates Manpower
Stables: Generates Horses
Houses: Population cap
Barracks: Produces Heavy Infantry and Spearmen
Cavalry Barracks: Produces Cavalry
And so on..
In terms of buildings that obtain map control, we have Castles and watch towers. The unique thing about these buildings is that they requires Ranged Infantry in them to have an attack and LOS. Watch towers don't even have an attack. They do have extended LOS however. These buildings can also be captured and manned by your opponent.
Similarly, villagers can hide (in limited numbers) in houses when the enemy raids. To get to the villagers, your opponent must first destroy the house. Houses can't be captured. So spreading housing around your base (close to Farms) is a good way to buy time for Villagers.
We also have a unique building type: Storage. If you want to stockpile excess a large amount of Grain, Wood or Currency, you respectively need Silos, Warehouses and Banks.
Depending on which Civilization you're playing you can build religious buildings (Churches, Mosques, Temples, w/e) which all procur interesting upgrades.
Armories can also be built, with military upgrades.
III. Civilizations & Maps
Civilizations:
Unlike SC2 where the races are all fundamentally different, in this game all Civilization are based on the same tech tree and use the same mechanics to work.
Every Civilization would have a core unit replaced by a unique one. The way it works is that every single unit is based off the base unit, for example "Archer". They all have the exact same base stats, but they're all given some sort of small bonus depending on unit type, that small bonus depends on which Civilization you're playing. Every civilization also has a unique unit which is quite different from the core unit, instead of having a small bonus.
For example, then English would have a unique Archer unit called Yeoman, with longer range than a standard archer. They would have a unique upgrade that allows the "Volley" ability to be casted at a longer range as well.
The English would have Cavalry with perhaps a little LOS bonus, Spearmen are slightly faster, and so on.
Franks on the other hand, would have their unique unit be the Knight, which would instead be called "Chevalier". This unique unit would be much different than a standard knight and it would have a unique upgrade all for itself. Frank Infantry might all be slightly faster, etc (is it Frankish?).
Each Civilization would also have a sort of passive bonus. For example, the Mongols would have a better production rate of horses. The Netherlands would have easier access to Currency through the use of trade caravans, and so on. Some Civilization would have all their military units have more resilient morale than others (Norse?). All of these passive bonuses would obviously have to be tweaked so that they're relevant in game without being broken.
Finally, they would also get a unique set of economic and miltary upgrades, instead of civilization bonuses from get the get-go. It could be things like Infantry speed upgrades, LOS upgrades but also resource gathering upgrades. Could be anything as long as it gives the Civ a unique feel without being broken.
All in all, it will be through these three themes that Civilizations will be unique from one another, instead of having completely different tech trees and units. This is to assure a solid base balance and it's also the way to work with units that work as hard counters. Other than the way the core tech tree works, units will all look different and have mostly different names (for example an English Knight will be named "Knight", a Germanic one "Ritte", a Spanish one "Caballero", and so on), with historical accuracy in mind, even if they're pretty much the same. Though this may seem to be a trivial detail, it's little details such as these that give a game a polished aspect to it. The historical accuracy is there because I feel there are too little games out there that are based off the real world. This is my dream RTS, feel free to disagree.
Maps:
In terms of maps, it would be nice to have great map diversity, just like in Starcraft. Unlike Age of Empires maps, which have resources generated and distributed randomly, these maps will be completely static, like the ones in Starcraft. This would allow for unique maps since in Age of Empires (3), the strategy you employed depended on your opponent's Civilization rather than the map itself. That's not to say all maps were exactly the same, but they were less unique than Starcraft maps.
Resources that come from the map in this game are Trees, Trade Routes and Fertile plains. Though Normal plains can also provide income, having Fertile plains make it worth getting map control.
These resources would be spread out around the map, evenly for both players. Some maps might have long rush distances and some might have short ones. Unlike in AoE where maps are flat plains, maps in this game have unpassable terrain, meaning controlling certain areas can lead to an economic victory. Unpassable terrain can be mountains (these are where Mines are found) or rivers. You want to expand to different locations where good natural resources can be found and you want to raid those areas if your opponent has a Forum there (for example). Some maps will have stretches of Poor terrain (desert maps!).
All that has been talked about, up until now, refers to 1 versus 1. The maps, the units, economy, Civilizations and so on.. it's all been 1v1.
IV. Outside the game
If such an RTS were to exist, it wouldn't be distributed the same way RTS it's been done in the past. This RTS would work similarly to LoL or Dota2.
The game would be free to play and 1v1 would be immediately available. 1v1 would play out the way it's been described in the previous section. 1v1 would directly use elorating as a rating system for ranked play. All Civilizations would be available for ranked play and an emphasis on balance would be made for that game mode.
2v2 ranked could also be played on a seperate ladder, though the true focus of this game is balanced and fun 1v1.
There is however a second game mode, let's call it "Conquest Mode". This play isn't ranked, you simply have your number of wins and your number of losses. How does it work?
You start off with some amount of "Experience Points" (you're going to see the influence MOBAs here). You choose a Civilization and you have a kind of city. As you play with that Civ, you get Experience points for that Civ only. With Experience Points you can buy "Equipment" for units which will boost their stats and/or give unique bonuses. Equipment not only enhances unit stats but it's also visual eye-candy. Experience points can also unlock Passive Civilization bonsues and even completely new units (these will be Mercenary units).
All Equipment and Bonuses are available for every Civ, but if you buy it for one Civ, it can't be transfered to another.
"Uniforms" can also be bought with Experience points. These are purely aesthetic and give no real bonus other than looking really nice. Uniforms unlocked in Conquest Mode are there in Ranked play, for that Civilization. Buildings are also subject to visual enhancements.
Actual money, €, $ and £ (that's all I had on my keyboard) can purchase Experience Point Boosts or a set of Experience points directly.
Achievements will also be in the game but in the form of medals and shit like that. There are achievments for Conquest mode but also for Ranked play. For example, managing to hit a certain amount of Elo gives you a medal (or achievement). You get shinier and shiner medals as you get higher and higher elo.
There could also be some sub-stats for ranked play. For example, there could be a smaller elorating for a certain civ. If you play with ranks, you get an overall rank for yourself as a player, but your Civ also gets an elorating. At the end of the season, the players with the top 50 Civ eloratings get a cool medal or something like that.
The overall objective of this model is that the core 1v1 game play is completely free, so people are encouraged to try it out. The Conquest Mode is what generates the money and it's made so that the games are really fun where you can unlock different cool features for a given civilization. It's the "fun" game mode and the relaxing one you do with your friends. If you don't want to spend a cent on the game, you can do so.
Conclusion.
Unfortunately this is just my (wet) dream. But it was really fun writing this and I hope you've all enjoyed this read. RTS is by far my favorite genre.
 
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skipped through it and it sounds like AoE II :>
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On August 12 2013 23:52 teddyoojo wrote:
skipped through it and it sounds like AoE II :>
That's because you skipped through it. ^^
Edit: you guys should really just read through it, I really want to hear reactions. it's closer to Aoe3 than aoe2 btw.
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On August 12 2013 23:53 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2013 23:52 teddyoojo wrote:
skipped through it and it sounds like AoE II :> That's because you skipped through it. ^^
that's because you wrote a wall of text (;
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Its really sad that there really is just one true modern RTS nowadays and thats Starcraft 2. I think that the RTS genre is really interesting. Lets hope for more competition.
I mean all new games doesnt really have to be mmorpg and moba games right ?
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I read as much as I could force myself to and you've clearly described AoE2 with a dabble of Black & White 2.
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Northern Ireland23146 Posts
I know it's pretty boring, but genuinely a vaguely updated Brood War would do it for me. Keep more of the feel as to how it plays. I prefer the RTS games that veer towards being mechanically demanding, which are few and far between of late.
The universe and general art design of the Starcraft universe is pretty sick, I dig the distinctive 3 races and the way they have been fleshed out.
Your game actually sounds pretty cool, but damn I like aliens too much!
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I really like theorizing about the rts genre, as i think that it atm has few to offer besides dota 2 (which doesnt really count since it's an action rpg) and sc2 which i am really unsatisfied with.
Read most of your text, sounds like aoe3, where are the big differences?
Besides while i liked aoe3, i think the way to develop the rts-genre is by using a system that is based on dow 1. Dawn of war was amazing in terms of action (since map-control equals ressources), positioning through territorial advantages, and trying to find a balance between tech, aggression and economy. Besides the original triangle hard-counter-system made comebacks possible.
I loved the outpost system, as it forces you to balance your own progress in tech, economy and manpower around the enemies focus. The strong and pretty much instant boost in economy makes things like 10 minute turtle into turtle expand like in sc2 impossible and forces permanent aggression and troop movement. Fights break out every minute and i split my troops up to get/keep the map or keep them together when the enemy tries to break through, which means that i actually micro my army, not my buildings and worker. While i like basebuilding to a certain extend, i regard myself in rts mainly as a general, which means that the economy should not be what wastes 9/10 of my time.
According to my experience more than two or three ressources is overkill. Either there remain two or three important ones (food and wood in the early game and food and gold in the mid- and lategame in the aoe-series) and the rest is more or less useless (stone) or you are in permanent need of one because it's to rare (crystals in heroes VI). It rarely ever creates points of interest. Besides if you start to make ressources part of the balancing (e.g. by making them necessary for one unit like horses or for high-tech in your system) it can easily backfire if the unit is to strong (immediate win once you secured the ressource) or to weak (which makes the ressource irrelevant).
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On August 13 2013 09:27 iTzSnypah wrote:
I read as much as I could force myself to and you've clearly described AoE2 with a dabble of Black & White 2.
Well, what do you think of how the economy works?
@Wombat, thanks! ^^
@Feather, yeah map control is always important in an RTS and I know that DOW is a good game, though I've never played it. I think discouraging turtling is also a good thing.
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Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music.
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You lost me at "There will be a hard counter system". Hard counters suck in RTS games and are only there because they greatly simplify balancing of the game for the developers. A "dream" RTS should not contain even a single hard counter.
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On August 13 2013 16:46 calh wrote:
Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music.
I've played a bit of it and it's a really well designed game, but games take waay too long! :p
@Tobberoth, nah have you ever played Aoe3? Game was excellently designed, it's actually better than SC2 and the micro in the game was ridiculously fun. Hard counters also you mean you can't just mass one or two units and a-move to victory (roaches anyone?)
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I see the similarities to Age of Empires. Sorry, but I don't really like the design of this.
Morale is equivalent to the snowball effect. I think this would really limit the potential of a comeback, especially in cases of an early rush. If the rush overpowers the defending force, the reinforcements will be even weaker due to morale, and the attacking force will be even stronger - the game snowballs out of control in favor of the winning side.
Resource drain is the biggest issue.
A) It really hinders early rushes because it is essentially another "supply cap" - if you cut workers, then you literally cannot build an army past a certain point due to your lack of income. In other words, it is actually the defending player which can have a larger army. Paradoxically, the player who focused on economy has both a larger economy and army!
B) Peasants are too important. If you lose your peasants due to a raid, you have to stop everything and replenish your peasants ASAP or else your army dies. This also costs you manpower, meaning you literally have to stop all army production in favor of peasants. Since peasants are so valuable, people will be afraid to move out, even if they have an unstoppable army!
C) Unstoppable armies are no longer unstoppable, if the peasants die your army dies no matter what. If you build up a huge, slow force, you are screwed. If you move out, all your peasants die. Then your army dies. In other words, only fast units are useful.
D) The worst problem: building an army decreases your production. Basically, that means that you cannot really increase your lead.
SC2 Supply
1 min: Player A 30/Player B 50
2 min: Player A 45/Player B 55
3 min: Player A 60/Player B 60
4 min: Player A 75/Player B 65
5 min: Player A 90/Player B 70
Player A's economic advantage allows him to produce more, and he pulls farther and farther away. This puts pressure on Player B to kill Player A before the lead is insurmountable.
Your RTS Supply
1 min: Player A 30/Player B 50
2 min: Player A 50/Player B: 55
3 min: Player A 70/Player B: 60
4 min: Player A 75/Player B: 65
5 min: Player A 80/Player B: 70
10 min: Player A 105/Player B 95
Explanation: Initially, it is true that Player A has more workers = greater income = better production. Thus, from 1-3 min, Player A surges ahead in army supply. However, at 3 min., Player A's army has exceeded Player B's army, and now Player A's worker lead is balanced out by the resource drain of his larger army. Thus, at 3 min. Player A and B actually have the same income! (Player A: 500 income, 400 drain. Player B: 400 income, 300 drain.) Now both players build a peasant, both have an increase of 50 income, both increase their army by 5 units which drains 50 extra. You see, due to the resource drain mechanic, Player A has more workers, but that does not translate to greater production because Player A also has a larger army! Do you see the problems with that?
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On August 13 2013 16:55 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 16:46 calh wrote:
Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music. I've played a bit of it and it's a really well designed game, but games take waay too long! :p @Tobberoth, nah have you ever played Aoe3? Game was excellently designed, it's actually better than SC2 and the micro in the game was ridiculously fun. Hard counters also you mean you can't just mass one or two units and a-move to victory (roaches anyone?)
There is nothing wrong with people able to win with one type unit if the game is well designed, because you would need such massive amounts of that unit that you've already won anyway, which is how it works in brood war and at least to some extent in SC2, soft counters is more than enough. Hard counters lead to boring gameplay where the game is either decided by the lucky pick of the person who picked the strong counter, or the person who builds enough hard counter units the fastest in a transition. No one will ever enjoy an RTS where "Oh well, guess I should have gone unit B instead of unit A in this game" is a common phrase during defeat.
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On August 13 2013 17:07 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 16:55 Incognoto wrote:On August 13 2013 16:46 calh wrote:
Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music. I've played a bit of it and it's a really well designed game, but games take waay too long! :p @Tobberoth, nah have you ever played Aoe3? Game was excellently designed, it's actually better than SC2 and the micro in the game was ridiculously fun. Hard counters also you mean you can't just mass one or two units and a-move to victory (roaches anyone?) There is nothing wrong with people able to win with one type unit if the game is well designed, because you would need such massive amounts of that unit that you've already won anyway, which is how it works in brood war and at least to some extent in SC2, soft counters is more than enough. Hard counters lead to boring gameplay where the game is either decided by the lucky pick of the person who picked the strong counter, or the person who builds enough hard counter units the fastest in a transition. No one will ever enjoy an RTS where "Oh well, guess I should have gone unit B instead of unit A in this game" is a common phrase during defeat.
Um, the answer is to make units A, B & C which complete a counter circle meaning that you can counter every unit type with your unit composition. No one can make one unit and get away with it because the other player will just make that units counter. There's absolutely no luck factor since every unit type is used. That's why it's a micro fest, you have to position and use all three unit types correctly.
On August 13 2013 17:06 Entirety wrote:
I see the similarities to Age of Empires. Sorry, but I don't really like the design of this.
Morale is equivalent to the snowball effect. I think this would really limit the potential of a comeback, especially in cases of an early rush. If the rush overpowers the defending force, the reinforcements will be even weaker due to morale, and the attacking force will be even stronger - the game snowballs out of control in favor of the winning side.
I indeed agree it has a snowball effect. I put in morale for two reasons. First, it allows perhaps some civilizations to potentially get a passive bonus out of this feature, ie a civ could have units with better morale for their units. It might add a unique flavor to the game. Veteran units (ie units that have kills) will be tougher in terms of morale, hence rewarding the player who has had better engagements during the game. It's indeed a snowball effect, but I think the numbers would be tweaked in a way that it wouldn't be game-breaking. Since it's a game of hard-counters, if you out-micro your opponent you'll still win the engagement. You might also employ hit and run tactics to pick off melee units at a distance to bring morale back up. But that comes down to numbers & stats. The second reason is that players who can't assure sufficient Currency income for their units would be punished for it. Morale is the way you punish having empty coffers. The game is really geared around making sure your economy can actually support the units you have. Which leads us to your second point.
Resource drain is the biggest issue.
A) It really hinders early rushes because it is essentially another "supply cap" - if you cut workers, then you literally cannot build an army past a certain point due to your lack of income. In other words, it is actually the defending player which can have a larger army. Paradoxically, the player who focused on economy has both a larger economy and army!
B) Peasants are too important. If you lose your peasants due to a raid, you have to stop everything and replenish your peasants ASAP or else your army dies. This also costs you manpower, meaning you literally have to stop all army production in favor of peasants. Since peasants are so valuable, people will be afraid to move out, even if they have an unstoppable army!
C) Unstoppable armies are no longer unstoppable, if the peasants die your army dies no matter what. If you build up a huge, slow force, you are screwed. If you move out, all your peasants die. Then your army dies. In other words, only fast units are useful.
D) The worst problem: building an army decreases your production. Basically, that means that you cannot really increase your lead.
Indeed, the only way increase productivity is to actually increase your economic population, adding military units will decrease that. So it's really important to NOT slack off economy. The flip-side to this is that it might nerf early rushes, but I believe by tweaking stats you can make it so that very few Peasants can support a large amount of low-tech units. You're right when you say Peasants are really valuable, so I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to give them a lot of health so that they don't die easily. Houses are also sort of mini-shelters where Peasants can hide, don't forget that.
SC2 Supply
1 min: Player A 30/Player B 50
2 min: Player A 45/Player B 55
3 min: Player A 60/Player B 60
4 min: Player A 75/Player B 65
5 min: Player A 90/Player B 70
Player A's economic advantage allows him to produce more, and he pulls farther and farther away. This puts pressure on Player B to kill Player A before the lead is insurmountable.
Your RTS Supply
1 min: Player A 30/Player B 50
2 min: Player A 50/Player B: 55
3 min: Player A 70/Player B: 60
4 min: Player A 75/Player B: 65
5 min: Player A 80/Player B: 70
10 min: Player A 105/Player B 95
Explanation: Initially, it is true that Player A has more workers = greater income = better production. Thus, from 1-3 min, Player A surges ahead in army supply. However, at 3 min., Player A's army has exceeded Player B's army, and now Player A's worker lead is balanced out by the resource drain of his larger army. Thus, at 3 min. Player A and B actually have the same income! (Player A: 500 income, 400 drain. Player B: 400 income, 300 drain.) Now both players build a peasant, both have an increase of 50 income, both increase their army by 5 units which drains 50 extra. You see, due to the resource drain mechanic, Player A has more workers, but that does not translate to greater production because Player A also has a larger army! Do you see the problems with that?
Perhaps it would be a good idea to give Peasants an income upgrade somewhere up there in the tech tree, to promote the player who is ahead in tech? You're right when you say this, but I don't think it's necessarily that bad, since economy in the game isn't centered around JUST production but also sustainability. Player B still has a smaller army which is a disadvantage due to the fact that Player A had more workers earlier. Also note that Player B could have easily skipped making military units at 2 minutes for example and made Peasants instead. Then he would have greater production.
Replied in bold, I thank for you taking the time to read my blog and giving your thoughts! means a lot to me, i spent a fair amount of time writing this
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On August 13 2013 17:30 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 17:07 Tobberoth wrote:On August 13 2013 16:55 Incognoto wrote:On August 13 2013 16:46 calh wrote:
Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music. I've played a bit of it and it's a really well designed game, but games take waay too long! :p @Tobberoth, nah have you ever played Aoe3? Game was excellently designed, it's actually better than SC2 and the micro in the game was ridiculously fun. Hard counters also you mean you can't just mass one or two units and a-move to victory (roaches anyone?) There is nothing wrong with people able to win with one type unit if the game is well designed, because you would need such massive amounts of that unit that you've already won anyway, which is how it works in brood war and at least to some extent in SC2, soft counters is more than enough. Hard counters lead to boring gameplay where the game is either decided by the lucky pick of the person who picked the strong counter, or the person who builds enough hard counter units the fastest in a transition. No one will ever enjoy an RTS where "Oh well, guess I should have gone unit B instead of unit A in this game" is a common phrase during defeat. Um, the answer is to make units A, B & C which complete a counter circle meaning that you can counter every unit type with your unit composition. No one can make one unit and get away with it because the other player will just make that units counter. There's absolutely no luck factor since every unit type is used. That's why it's a micro fest, you have to position and use all three unit types correctly.
So it instead becomes boring in the sense that every player is forced to use the same composition every game or else they will be countered, where as a game with only soft counters lets players pick from various compositions and use their strength and weaknesses with positioning instead, leading to actual strategy instead of rock, paper, scissors.
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obviously the game is based on aoe, but it adds so much. what's wrong with aoe, anyway? it's an entirely different concept from starcraft, but not worse by any means.
On August 13 2013 17:06 Entirety wrote:
I see the similarities to Age of Empires. Sorry, but I don't really like the design of this.
Morale is equivalent to the snowball effect. I think this would really limit the potential of a comeback, especially in cases of an early rush. If the rush overpowers the defending force, the reinforcements will be even weaker due to morale, and the attacking force will be even stronger - the game snowballs out of control in favor of the winning side. not the game, just that 1 fight. and morale adds a micro aspect which is retreating hurt units. this is how it worked in real life and it will make the fights not only more interesting but also more mechanically demanding which is never a bad thing.
Resource drain is the biggest issue.
A) It really hinders early rushes because it is essentially another "supply cap" - if you cut workers, then you literally cannot build an army past a certain point due to your lack of income. In other words, it is actually the defending player which can have a larger army. Paradoxically, the player who focused on economy has both a larger economy and army!
i think you're overestimating how much a unit would drain your economy. it's not like every unit drains an entire grain per second. besides, if it's not balanced, the numbers can always be tuned up or down.
the player who focuses on economy rather than military will have less units. remember what you said about morale? having less units is risky due to the snowball effect. i think morale is a good way to prevent resource drain from making early rush builds not viable.
B) Peasants are too important. If you lose your peasants due to a raid, you have to stop everything and replenish your peasants ASAP or else your army dies. This also costs you manpower, meaning you literally have to stop all army production in favor of peasants. Since peasants are so valuable, people will be afraid to move out, even if they have an unstoppable army! why are you losing peasants to raids? yes, peasants are important, they're your economy! they should be important and you shouldn't be losing them. i'm sure there would be buildings available to build near your peasants that they can garisson into. or you could simply leave some pikemen with them to fend off any cavalry.
C) Unstoppable armies are no longer unstoppable, if the peasants die your army dies no matter what. If you build up a huge, slow force, you are screwed. If you move out, all your peasants die. Then your army dies. In other words, only fast units are useful. you're forgetting buildings. i think you're basing this too much on starcraft where buildings are pretty much useless at protecting workers other than walling them off. in aoe there have always been buildings that can both attack and function as garisson for workers. why? because unlike in starcraft the maps are open and without such buildings raids would indeed be too strong.
D) The worst problem: building an army decreases your production. Basically, that means that you cannot really increase your lead. you can increase your lead by attacking, or you can increase your lead by not building that much army and instead booming your economy. that's how it should work. same in starcraft: expanding decreases your army production, and a lot of army production decreases your economic growth.
Explanation: Initially, it is true that Player A has more workers = greater income = better production. Thus, from 1-3 min, Player A surges ahead in army supply. However, at 3 min., Player A's army has exceeded Player B's army, and now Player A's worker lead is balanced out by the resource drain of his larger army. Thus, at 3 min. Player A and B actually have the same income! (Player A: 500 income, 400 drain. Player B: 400 income, 300 drain.) Now both players build a peasant, both have an increase of 50 income, both increase their army by 5 units which drains 50 extra. You see, due to the resource drain mechanic, Player A has more workers, but that does not translate to greater production because Player A also has a larger army! Do you see the problems with that? i know i don't. sure, they both have the same production, but player A has a larger army. go and attack, player A! do something with that lead! (or cease military production and focus on economy)
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On August 13 2013 17:47 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 17:30 Incognoto wrote:On August 13 2013 17:07 Tobberoth wrote:On August 13 2013 16:55 Incognoto wrote:On August 13 2013 16:46 calh wrote:
Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music. I've played a bit of it and it's a really well designed game, but games take waay too long! :p @Tobberoth, nah have you ever played Aoe3? Game was excellently designed, it's actually better than SC2 and the micro in the game was ridiculously fun. Hard counters also you mean you can't just mass one or two units and a-move to victory (roaches anyone?) There is nothing wrong with people able to win with one type unit if the game is well designed, because you would need such massive amounts of that unit that you've already won anyway, which is how it works in brood war and at least to some extent in SC2, soft counters is more than enough. Hard counters lead to boring gameplay where the game is either decided by the lucky pick of the person who picked the strong counter, or the person who builds enough hard counter units the fastest in a transition. No one will ever enjoy an RTS where "Oh well, guess I should have gone unit B instead of unit A in this game" is a common phrase during defeat. Um, the answer is to make units A, B & C which complete a counter circle meaning that you can counter every unit type with your unit composition. No one can make one unit and get away with it because the other player will just make that units counter. There's absolutely no luck factor since every unit type is used. That's why it's a micro fest, you have to position and use all three unit types correctly. So it instead becomes boring in the sense that every player is forced to use the same composition every game or else they will be countered, where as a game with only soft counters lets players pick from various compositions and use their strength and weaknesses with positioning instead, leading to actual strategy instead of rock, paper, scissors. look at it this way. what you get with hard counters is that instead of single units soft countering one another, unit compositions (made of 2 different units) soft counter one another. i suggest you read the part where incog goes in detail about fights in aoe3. of course completing the counter circle is the best way to go against 2 unit type combos, but that in turn can get countered by massing 1 single unit, and has the downside of requiring more different types of buildings. what it comes down to is that both players will be constantly looking to scout what their opponent is doing and adapting to their composition.
sigh, talking about this makes me want to play it so badly
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not the game, just that 1 fight. and morale adds a micro aspect which is retreating hurt units. this is how it worked in real life and it will make the fights not only more interesting but also more mechanically demanding which is never a bad thing.
There are already benefits to retreating hurt units.
i think you're overestimating how much a unit would drain your economy. it's not like every unit drains an entire grain per second. besides, if it's not balanced, the numbers can always be tuned up or down.
the player who focuses on economy rather than military will have less units. remember what you said about morale? having less units is risky due to the snowball effect. i think morale is a good way to prevent resource drain from making early rush builds not viable.
Sorry, I was not very clear. When you commit to an early rush, you have an advantage because you have greater production at that very second. In SC2, for example, 3rax works because you have 2 additional production facilities. However, in this game, there is none of that because the player with the larger army will naturally have worse income = worse production. Thus, early rushes = not viable at all?
why are you losing peasants to raids? yes, peasants are important, they're your economy! they should be important and you shouldn't be losing them. i'm sure there would be buildings available to build near your peasants that they can garisson into. or you could simply leave some pikemen with them to fend off any cavalry.
you're forgetting buildings. i think you're basing this too much on starcraft where buildings are pretty much useless at protecting workers other than walling them off. in aoe there have always been buildings that can both attack and function as garisson for workers. why? because unlike in starcraft the maps are open and without such buildings raids would indeed be too strong.
Of course, static defense is useful, but if it's like SC2, they cannot stand up to a decent army. If they are too strong, then early rushes again become completely useless... in fact, attacking becomes a terrible option. Yes, you are supposed to protect peasants, but if you are protecting them perfectly, then you are not moving out. Thus, a very passive game. If you are not protecting them perfectly, you practically lose the game right there. I think the game would be too unforgiving.
you can increase your lead by attacking, or you can increase your lead by not building that much army and instead booming your economy. that's how it should work. same in starcraft: expanding decreases your army production, and a lot of army production decreases your economic growth.
i know i don't... sure, they both have the same production, but player A has a larger army... go and attack, player A! do something with that lead...
The problem with that is essentially, the player who is behind economically has no reason to try and punish the economically superior player. Imagine that your opponent went for economy and successfully defended, and now has more workers. In SC2, you would realize that you're in trouble, you need some desperation moves - double expand, or pull off risky plays. In this RTS, I would not feel so pressured because I know the opponent's army is growing at the same size as mine. If my opponent goes for solely peasants, I can do the same. Now if I have 5 troops and you have 10, I would want to drag the game on as long as possible so it becomes 95 troops vs. 100 troops. Suddenly, the player who is behind wants to extend the game, all because the player who is ahead cannot increase his army faster? I think that is a flaw.
P.S. Did you create an account just to reply to these posts?
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On August 13 2013 17:47 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 17:30 Incognoto wrote:On August 13 2013 17:07 Tobberoth wrote:On August 13 2013 16:55 Incognoto wrote:On August 13 2013 16:46 calh wrote:
Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music. I've played a bit of it and it's a really well designed game, but games take waay too long! :p @Tobberoth, nah have you ever played Aoe3? Game was excellently designed, it's actually better than SC2 and the micro in the game was ridiculously fun. Hard counters also you mean you can't just mass one or two units and a-move to victory (roaches anyone?) There is nothing wrong with people able to win with one type unit if the game is well designed, because you would need such massive amounts of that unit that you've already won anyway, which is how it works in brood war and at least to some extent in SC2, soft counters is more than enough. Hard counters lead to boring gameplay where the game is either decided by the lucky pick of the person who picked the strong counter, or the person who builds enough hard counter units the fastest in a transition. No one will ever enjoy an RTS where "Oh well, guess I should have gone unit B instead of unit A in this game" is a common phrase during defeat. Um, the answer is to make units A, B & C which complete a counter circle meaning that you can counter every unit type with your unit composition. No one can make one unit and get away with it because the other player will just make that units counter. There's absolutely no luck factor since every unit type is used. That's why it's a micro fest, you have to position and use all three unit types correctly. So it instead becomes boring in the sense that every player is forced to use the same composition every game or else they will be countered, where as a game with only soft counters lets players pick from various compositions and use their strength and weaknesses with positioning instead, leading to actual strategy instead of rock, paper, scissors.
Again I disagree, there's more than one viable unit composition and by using Civ bonuses, you can make one Civ better utilize a certain unit comp rather than another. Also note that group abilities mix everything up as well.
For example, let's say player A with Ranged Infantry, Light Cav and Spear-men (RI/LC/SM). This unit comp is cheaper than using Heavy units so you can sustain large armies; and it's pretty mobile. The counter circle is complete, you have every unit to cover every weakness here. There's no unit you can really throw at this unit comp that won't be countered, except Heavy Infantry, which is soft-countered by this units composition mobility and Ranged Infantry's range. However, if you can properly micro Ranged Infantry and Heavy Cav, you can take out this unit comp by picking off Spear-men with RI and using Heavy Cav to engage the rest. It's up to the RI/LC/SM to make sure that the SM can cover the RI without getting picked off at range.
That's two different unit comps already that aren't mirrors and that can work against each other, on paper at least.
Similarly, you could use Heavy Cav and Heavy Infantry. The Heavy Cav comes forward and engages RI/LC/SM. The SM are forced to fight the HC and then you bring in your own HI. HI/HC might win against SM since HI > SM, eventually the HC mops up everything else. Unless of course you manage to NOT allow yourself to be engaged by the HI in the first place by keeping your army in almost constant movement, out of the Charge range of the HI.
The use of hard counters rewards the player with better micro and positioning, it's NOT rock paper scissors.
The problem with that is essentially, the player who is behind economically has no reason to try and punish the economically superior player. Imagine that your opponent went for economy and successfully defended, and now has more workers. In SC2, you would realize that you're in trouble, you need some desperation moves - double expand, or pull off risky plays. In this RTS, I would not feel so pressured because I know the opponent's army is growing at the same size as mine. If my opponent goes for solely peasants, I can do the same. Now if I have 5 troops and you have 10, I would want to drag the game on as long as possible so it becomes 95 troops vs. 100 troops. Suddenly, the player who is behind wants to extend the game, all because the player who is ahead cannot increase his army faster? I think that is a flaw.
Pretty interesting point. I think it's important to maintain somewhat constant Peasant production and do everything you can to raid enemy Peasants with your own units, while protecting your own. Notice that we aren't taking map design into account here. Are the maps wide open so that Peasants can easily be attacked from everywhere or are there certain places where enemies can't come from, ie mountains and rivers. Still, a player with a smaller army and a larger economy early on will still be vulnerable to rushes.
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EPT
