Last forum got a lil bitchy, but it got me thinking: As an RTS player/developer/general enthusiast, what is your general philosophy on things like simulationism, dice throws, unit count/scale, micromanagement, tactics vs strategy? Also, what is the true nature of random number deities and cursed primes? If your AI skirmish bots became conscious, what would you do? Theres a great deal of philosophy involved with fake warfare.
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action at a distance, which I ranted about here: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/3569Action at a distance, when you can effect change at a distance without passing through the intervening space, is bad. Two units have action at a distance - the genie and the dominatrix
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My rule is always clarity over everything else and keeping in mind how many factors a player should be expected to keep in mind. Realism is a fine way to do clarity, or having the numbers up front, or just keeping the game very small. But always clarity.
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To your post here and in "AA ...." If you want true Real RTS.... I propose to add to Zero-K , (what zero-k dont have) - MAN POWER (i want to build house for them, place to eat, bread them, mature them and after that send to death in my Ground/Air/Sea units) - Build my own nation from what my comannders come from, for bonuses from it need - Weather disadvantage on all maps - suplise for arnmy - ammo for army - cost of all factors ( suplices, ammo, muturing them, shooling them) - Good/Bad mods of units , factors like 100% energy sleep/eat (in war zone positional fight must be sup line) - Ranodm events like (destroyed your home land your army have less morals / will to fight proper) - refusal to obey an order, if this is a suicide mission ( when sending 1 goli in enemy lands with out air sup) Ech i can write more , but i can tell you this your problems are invalid for me. I LIKE IT AS IT IS NOW.
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Simulationism (is this written correctly?) I don care at all about Simulationism. I see this as an abstract game with it's own rules, including action at a distance. The robots and the shooting are just a theme to make it more accessible and understandable. Micro. You can't get it out of Real Time games. No matter how much you stuff automate new area's appear where you can micro. Zero-K, or every other good RTS, will offer you with more to do than you can handle. Being fast and simply "do more" and "do if fast" is one of the core skills of Real Time games. If you want a truly tinkerers game turn based games are the only way to go. Or you have to allow the players to pause the game every second (or even between every frame, so you have a turn based game again) Randoms are bad for you, mmkay Zero-K does have some areas where units behave a bit unpredictable. Hitting radar blobs and the projectile spread of certain weapons come to mind. But they are not that random at a level i have a problem with. Unit count/scale I think the game has struck a nice balance between those two. I'd maybe increase the size of flea/dirtbox and don't care for Detriments. I never consider the untits >3000 metal. (Partially a map problem and the fact that all of my games are decided before someone can make one those) But that's just me. The standard for 1v1 maps could be bigger imo. Ideally all 1v1 maps should be around comet catcher's size. the current popular 1v1 maps are too small (avalanche, geyser planes, and to hell with dark side) Bigger maps give more room for come-backs, are less prone to cheese, allow for a more economy based game and have more room for the positional game.
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There is a difference between war games, and rts games. Those are different genres, and simulationism only belongs in the former. The latter make their own rules. I'm not addicted to those, but i like them sometimes - as long as the probability values are at least roughly known, so i can do some backbone probability theory in my mind as i run. You should also notice, that you can't eradicate probability from ANY game that has information hiding and RPS mechanics - that's just game theory for you. I'm not even talking blind counters, btw - there are always cases where you have to evaluate probable risks and benefits of moving your Abominable Glaivepack from your base - which can lead to enemy marching in and obliterating said base. This is a sliding scale. Smaller number of more complicated units for more tactic, larger number of similar guys for more grand-scale stuff. I prefer the smaller counts, because i like that adrenaline-packed tension where you Find And Kill The Other Guy. Micromanagement is in most cases just tactics with a bad name and a lot of tedium. If units are less dumb, the micro- is actually less "micro" and more "tactics", so smart units are for the future! quote:
tactics vs strategy? |
The difference between those are, imo, mostly artificial in an RTS like ZK. Oh, you can call your factory choice, unit composition, economy and expansion patterns strategy, and the rest tactics, but what good does it do? quote:
The standard for 1v1 maps could be bigger imo. Ideally all 1v1 maps should be around comet catcher's size. |
Ironically, most and best comebacks seem to come from hiding information, not from vast expanses of easy-to-claim mexes - Barren and wanderlust come to mind. Comebacks on larger maps like comet seem to usually come from escalation events (a guy starts making dante, falls back because of no reinforcements, then dante comes out and pwns everything) Now, to the real philosophy behind RTS games: TIME IS YOUR ONLY RESOURCE. Just think about that for a minute.
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Anarchid, i already saw my fault when i reread my post. People would assume ccr maps instead of ccr-size maps. Ccr has a ridiculous amount of metal on it. Bandit plains hasn't. Hide&seek is nice, but still very small and easily split. I have never seen someone hide something on Barren there is hardly enough metal for tech switches and radars can see into the other base anyway.
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my philosophy on general play is "i dont care if i win as long as i die in a giant fireball" simulationisim: i like detail and quirkiness (the complete oposite of yanom) i like having chaotic effects, and things in one part of the map effecting other parts unpredictably unit count: i like small units, hundreds of milllions of small units, my personal preferance is macroscopic scale combat, i dont really apreciate micro that much tactics v strategy: i would like the ai to handle tactics so i could basicaly play overly complex chess random number diety/cursed primes/ect: i do not belive, i am a soulless machine ai: probably already exists, you just dont notice it, because it is too different from normal humal logic and existance, and its way too complex to(see internet, ect)
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quote:
I have never seen someone hide something on Barren |
My bad - mixup with Badlands detected.
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Antixus, this is robot game not a modern military :P. Personally, I dislike modern military for the reasons you listed. I prefer an extremely aggressive game such as Zero-k. Not a nation builder. The only thing I like about those games is that they make you feel alot like a general.
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@antixus you forgot the emotional aspect, interpersonal relationships between soldiers, idiosyncracies and life history of each unit. Also nutrition should be taken into account, the ability to choose which foods to mix into combat rations could win you the war! Actually, when talking about overly complex games, I always think of dwarffort
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dwarf fort: a game about herding cats with dwarfs pretty good summary of it dont you think XD but yea DF is probably the most detailed ocd simulationist game out there and i thoughroly enjoy it, there nothing beter then a game where you can die from more then 1000 different causes and most of the time have absolutley no idea what exactly went so horibly wrong
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DF is a good example of simulationisms obsession with detail and complexity while ignoring the big picture. You have complex (and emergent = fun!) water simulation but it's almost non-essential other than medicine. For early civilizations, water was vital for drinking, irrigation, sewerage, cleaning: The 'hydraulic empire'. You have simulation of temperature, but this is used almost exclusively for lava. One of the major challenges of early civilization is keeping warm, cooking and preventing fires- the hearth was a massively big deal and buildings were often built around it (also dealing with smoke etc and ensuring a steady supply of burning material). You have a simulation of skin, bone, teeth, hair, but the effects are basically random because hit location is random: This adds nothing but fluff and flavour. These are important but mechanics can and should effect gameplay too. You have simulation of materials down to edge and sheer strength, but most of these factors never come into play aside from weapons, where steel is always the best other than adamantium. This is where simulationism of mostly real-world materials is actively obstructionist: if these material properties actually had real uses in a variety of applications, you might want and require a range of materials from a range of sources rather than materials rendering lower levels redundant. All of these things would increase the complexity, emergence and enjoyment of the game and actually use the mechanics Notch has spent so long putting into the game as a part of gameplay. DF is a stellar game and I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it, but a lot of the systems put into the game never improve actual gameplay.
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actualy most of the things you mentioned do have an effect on the game, dwarfs are cold resistant, but you still have to deal with all water being iced, and no farming all tissues cant be specificaly targeted in acventure and broken (my personal habit is to "remove" all the limbs of my enemy and leave them XD) lead/silver sledgehammers... but yea df is still a WIP and is going to probably get all the other features eventualy (in the next 500 years before its finished development)
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complexity through obscurity-similiar to security through obscurity, bad for same reason -lots of rules/units/weapons that must be remembered, though many are same-ish  complexity through simplicity-few rules, but those allow complex pattern 
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Simulation is good for modding. When you simulate the real world, modder can create their own games and this game is a subset of this real world. Example: Valve's Source engine can simulate physic--> as result, many mods were created using Source Engine which later became their own game. Minecraft is also a 'simulation' but not of physic-->as result, mods were created and Minecraft is really popular in youtube. X Plane simulate real aerodynamic (while MS FSX is based on models)--> as result, you can make your own airplane.
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Moddability doesn't have anything to do with simulationism.
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Okay, I get it... you need the interface too... for interacting with the stuff.
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> I see this as an abstract game with it's own rules, including action at a distance. My rant was actually about how Zero-K does not allow Action at a Distance as one of it's rules. Except those two mentioned units, they don't fit with the rest of the game, and that's why I was ranting. That said, an RTS with Action at a Distance as a legitimate game mechanic would be pretty cool. Zero-K isn't that game however.
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"When you simulate the real world, modder can create their own games and this game is a subset of this real world." Very true. I lean pretty simulationist, but I also like simulations of scale, and too much realism makes larger scales impossibly complex. Thats why I like the coop mode no one plays. Anyways, the cool thing about spring is that it simulates massive scale pretty fluidly by streamlining repetivive tasks.
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