<!--quoteo(post=1771437:date=May 16 2010, 06:51 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ May 16 2010, 06:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771437"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This, incidentally, is why I stay away from rts games. There's just no room for me to break into that genre when something as seemingly inconsequential as what a single builder does for a few seconds actually matters. I mean, it takes what, five seconds to move to the choke? And then five seconds to move back? Ten seconds in total (out of the ten-plus minutes a match can take) for one builder out of two dozen, and it matters? There's no way a beginner like me can ever catch up to that level.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unless you're trying to compete at a pro or near pro level you don't have to catch up to that level. The best thing about battle.net 2.0 is the ladder and matchmaking system. Once the game is flushed with everyone who buys it you'll have no problem finding games around your skill level.
<!--quoteo(post=1771437:date=May 16 2010, 11:51 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ May 16 2010, 11:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771437"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This, incidentally, is why I stay away from rts games. There's just no room for me to break into that genre when something as seemingly inconsequential as what a single builder does for a few seconds actually matters.... There's no way a beginner like me can ever catch up to that level.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For a large amount of players, it doesn't matter. It only really becomes an issue with getting perfect timings for very advanced build orders. The point I was trying to make, is that building placement is much more important than the quoted posted was trying to make out. And sure, beginners can catch up (I've managed to, 1v1 Gold, 2v2 Plat) its just a case of patience, and putting in the effort required to learn. I totally agree with SentrySteve's post, the ladder system is very good for matching players of equal skill.
Really, your progression of learning should go something like this 1) Do I know what units/buildings do what? 2) Do I know what units tend to counter what? Army composition thoughts. 3) Can I macro? (expand, mine, keep very few resources sitting around, have enough money for what you need when you need it, supply) 3.5) Basic micro? (don't auto-attack entire army!) 4) Can I time stuff? (I expect my enemy to have <insert units here> and I will need <insert counter unit here>) 5) Crazy advanced micro stuffs and specific uber 10sec builds.
Personally, I'm somewhere around... learning 3 and 3.5. =]
<!--quoteo(post=1771438:date=May 16 2010, 04:08 PM:name=NeonSpyder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeonSpyder @ May 16 2010, 04:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771438"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I found Company of Heroes to be curiously refreshing as far as the RTS genre goes.
The way it used capture points as area-control + resource acquisition made territory-holding matter a lot more then it does in a lot of other games. Also even after playing for many months I only rarely got a sense of ah... boredom? The build orders were fairly up in the air, as far as I knew (and witnessed in ranked games) there were a few REALLY early build choices such as going for lots of engineers to rush-cap some points or set up roadblocks... but aside from that it seemed like there were only 'general strategies' that focused on a particular combination of units or loose build order.
I'll admit though that it was very annoying when for a while there everyone and their mother would just spam rangers. That was especially frustrating because it worked so well against even an entrenched and well balanced army. Think they fixed that though.
My original point was that the game was not as predictable as something like Starcraft, and that was a major point in it's favour.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I never got the nuances of CoH. Probably because I suck at micro and CoH tended to have quite the emphasis on that aspect. Either that or I was trying to micro when I should have been working on my micro... but keeping my dudes in cover and overlapping fire is soooo fun to fiddle with while I amass unknowingly 700+ fuel that I shouldn't spent on tanks.
That being said, I think the "refreshing" aspect was that everyone was equally confused. I'm sure in higher level play there were much more defined build orders, transitions, and such just like in SC1 (and developing in SC2 at an alarming rate) but we all were noobs and didn't know what to do. My buddy who watched upper tier play can confirm that. But yes, control points, imo, are an awesome game mechanic instead of mine mah minerals.
There's really no 'build order' for COH given that you only have what, 5 buildings? Two types of vehicle buildings, two types of infantry buildings, and some weird support prereq building...?
<!--quoteo(post=1771416:date=May 16 2010, 07:32 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ May 16 2010, 07:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771416"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The base-building part of RTS games is fairly insipid, mostly because it's just a routine build order that a bot could execute. Hell the opening moments of any pro-level SC game are almost always the exact same. Player decides if he's going to mutalisk ###### or whatever, and then does pretty much the same exact thing to reach that end. What's more, it's not about strategy, unless you consider what is effectively one giant mathematical sum 'strategic'.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Depends on the game, some RTS games have the base building as half the challenge because you have a complex economy to manage, some of them just make you put buildings everywhere.
In all RTS games though bases serve a purpose, they mark an area of the map as your staging point, if you can't build something that does that it removes a fairly big part of the game, because you stop fighting from your base to the enemy base and instead just run around killing random people, it's the difference between deathmatch and CTF.
Personally I find games that don't have a sufficiently developed fortification mechanic kinda dull, I like company of heroes and it has simple base building, but complex fortification mechanics, you have a few base buildings but quite in-depth defences for them. I don't hugely like dawn of war 2 because you just get a HQ and a couple of starting turrets, and the entire map gets reduced to ash in about ten minutes, so it's not very interesting.
<!--quoteo(post=1771474:date=May 17 2010, 04:38 AM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ May 17 2010, 04:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771474"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's really no 'build order' for COH given that you only have what, 5 buildings? Two types of vehicle buildings, two types of infantry buildings, and some weird support prereq building...?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's different for each side, but the build orders aren't just in the buildings, it's in the units, upgrades, movements between tiers, and so on too. There's quite a bit of variation especially in the mid game and late game. Early game there are only a few popular options but you do have room to experiment because even on the pro level having an SCV idle for 4 seconds won't kill you the way it will in Starcraft 2, so you see some innovative stuff by the pros in terms of early game too.
NeonSpyder"Das est NTLDR?"Join Date: 2003-07-03Member: 17913Members
I think part of the gulf of distance between a game like SC and CoH is mathematics and chance.
Think about it. There is no chance in Starcraft, everything boils down to raw calculations of damage over hitpoints without variation.
In something like CoH there are many modifiers that affect how a battle will turn out. Percentile chance to hit for example, modified by cover and I believe there's even a range component. Chance like that is a part of every unit from the engineers to the tanks. And with tanks they have another fun layer of armor that needs to be calculated out according to angles and such.
I believe that gives CoH something of a more 'messy' and unpredictable quality. Even knowing the intimate details of the game doesn't change the possibility that in this particular battle your troops might just be unlucky as hell and screw up a fight they should have won. That could never happen in starcraft as that game boils down to target-priority and micro, which it could be argued is more representative of 'skill' by the player... but I prefer the kind of unpredictable game you get from CoH. Don't get me wrong, an understanding of the game's mechanics serves you very very well in CoH as you can make decisions about your troops that put them in the best possible situation.
<!--quoteo(post=1771431:date=May 16 2010, 06:23 PM:name=marks)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (marks @ May 16 2010, 06:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771431"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You can reduce Chess to a flowchart. Does that make it any less strategic?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is particularly true. Remember that the only reason chess is strategically interesting is because we lack the capacity to fully enumerate all possible outcomes from our moves to find the global best move right now. We can only think 6-10 moves ahead, and only then by branching shallowly from our intended course.
Strategy enters in because we now have to consider our opponent and take chances or attempt to mitigate damage if we're wrong. We're forced to consider the unknown.
That's actually wrong, I read an article a while back where (I forget the name) one of the Chess Grand Masters was quoted as having visualised the winning board position something like 19 moves ahead. Obviously this is a small minority, but the point stands. The reason Chess hasnt been "solved" in the same way that Checkers has, is simply mathematical complexity. In the same article I mentioned previously, it was quoted that there were more possible games of Chess than there are stars in our galaxy. But, as of course you know, Chess is a perfect-knowledge game. Any game like that can, mathematically, be reduced to a perfect strategy.
The only way I can see a comparison between chess and RTS games is that an RTS game is like playing a retarded version of chess where you have to write all your moves down in advance, and then take turns going through the list, regardless of what your opponent is doing.
In chess, you can see what your opponent is doing. Both sides have to play a reactionary game as well as advancing their own agenda.
In even the most elite top-level RTS, there's a lot of luck and metagaming. Since the opening of a Starcraft game is blind and your opening moves *DO* decide your later ones, you have to have a general plan on what you're going towards to defeat your enemy before you even know what he's doing. Time is of the essence and scouting to see what they're doing and then reacting to it is more often than not a futile effort, because you've fallen behind the power curve.
RTS games are on a completely inferior level compared to chess.
Cue RTS elitists telling me I'm too stupid to understand what I'm seeing, and that when Jaedong (or whoever the ###### these idiots are) desperately built some unit to counter the unit his opponent built but lost because it was too late, that's what I see: "You planned to encounter X, but you encountered Y, so you lose". I'm not nearly lame enough to actually watch more than a handful of these insipid things, but I've NEVER seen a high-level Starcraft game involve a combined mix of units working in unison to play off their own strengths and weaknesses. Instead they mostly involve a massive glut of one specific type (ie: a ######ton of mutalisks, or vultures, or whatever) with a few support role units thrown in (dropships, arbiters).
The 'massive glut of unit type opponent can't counter' is so much a part of competitive RTS that there's a pretty large amount of units that very rarely if ever get used (Protoss Scouts?). In most games, you don't even need most of your tech tree because the Rock-Paper-Scissors aspect plays in your favor.
So no. That's not strategy. That's glorified dice-rolling. The only 'skill' part I see in Starcraft doesn't involve strategy at all - it involves ridiculous clicking skills and hand-eye-coordination. Yes that's impressive, and that's mostly how individual battles are won, that's a skill aspect.
But that's not strategy. RTS games are not strategic.
While for RTS games like Starcraft and C&C (at least C&C >3), for the most part I would agree. But then there are unique RTS' like Homeworld (note: NOT Homeworld 2) that really defined strategic use of ships, IMO. Steamrolling someone with a large number of Unit X is almost impossible in Homeworld unless your opponent had just started playing or is just really, really slow. Every ship has a counter to the point where if they face that counter, they will likely lose, no matter how many ships of their own type they face. If you don't have Support Frigates, for example, your fighters will run out of fuel if they're too far from your carrier/mothership... but if you don't defend the Support Frigates, the fighters become useless. If you don't kill the Assault Frigates defending the opponents Capital Ships first, your bombers will get taken out in a couple seconds.
I don't know about Starcraft, but in C&C if you have enough of Unit X, you're probably going to defeat Counter Y anyways, unless that is, they have more or the same amount of units as you. While sure, spamming units is a Strategy, its not what Strategy games were intended for, IMO.
Depends on how you define metagaming. You can try to make your opponent think you're doing something else. You can gamble on him misinterpreting the information available to him, or you can try to make him think you intend to do something other than what you're going to do. But you can't suddenly uncloak a queen behind his pawn line and put the king in check. If he is unable to correctly deduce what you're going to do it's because he lacks the ability to correctly interpret the available data (the available data being "all of it"), not because he was unable to gather the relevant data or because you were able to hide the relevant data. In chess, you can hide your thoughts, but never your actions.
I kind of agree with Temphage on a couple of points, although I think its unlikely he even realises he's making them. Yes, Starcraft is strategically quite simple. The choices between attack, counter-attack, defend, backstab, expand are pretty limited. The game is arguably more about tactics than strategy, which is an important difference. The point of this being that the strategy in Starcraft is so simple that the most optimal moves and counter-moves have been mapped out by now, and the tactics is also heading down that route .... its on the same level as any other board-based strategy game where there simply is a mathematically optimal way of playing. With Checkers we've found that mathematically optimal strategy because it is a simple game, with Chess we haven't because of pure mathematical complexity - we can't crunch enough numbers yet to work out what it is. Now, once you take that into account, aswell as the other pivotal factor that the game is played in real-time versus turn-based, what you get is pretty obvious - a strong reliance on mechanics over strategy. If you played Chess in real-time ... do you think the grand-master who makes 1 move every 10 seconds would win, or the rookie who makes 1 move every second? Mechanics is an important and integral component of <b>all</b> real-time games.
To say that "RTS games are on a completely inferior level compared to chess." is pretty ignorant in my opinion. Yes they are comparable; yes they are very, very different games. It's like comparing tennis to soccer, they both have very different defining characteristics, they both also have a bunch of stuff which is directly comparible.
I think the point I'm trying to get at here, is that if Starcraft would be a perfect-knowledge game (no fog of war) then yeah it would most likely be <b>extremely</b> mechanics-oriented, because the high-level strategy is very simple, whereas the high-level tactics is very complex. The insane micromanagement, the multi-tasking, the build-orders and rock-paper-scissors builds and counterbuilds ... thats all tactics, not strategy. I would argue that in an average game of Starcraft, no more than about 10 actual strategic decisions are made, whereas tactical decisions are made by the dozens every minute.
If you want true strategy over tactics and mechanics, go play Rome:Total War or something =|
I always thought metagaming was where you cheat by memorising everything about the game and your opponent before you begin, in which case it would be rather easier in chess than it would in an RTS because a lot of competitive chess games are well documented and you can also apply psychology to your opponent because they're sitting across the table from you.
I always thought the entire appeal of chess was that the game itself is largely immaterial, instead you get to play competitive psychoanalysis and the chessboard is just there to give you an excuse.
<!--quoteo(post=1771598:date=May 18 2010, 04:19 PM:name=marks)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (marks @ May 18 2010, 04:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771598"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->stuff<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I totally agree that Starcraft (and a lot of RTS games) are more about tactics than strategy. In fact, I've argued that some FPS games like the Battlefield series are more strategic than most RTS games. in both games/genres, when and where and what you attack with makes a difference, but in Battlefield, flanking is much more helpful, as is strategic positioning in general. There are choke points in Starcraft, sure, but effectively what matters is how many units of what type each player in a confrontation has (and who has the better micro). In Battlefield, strategic position is an incredible force multiplier.
Of course, in Battlefield, you don't generally have any control over what your other "units" do =p
Positioning is extremely important in Starcraft and RTS games, but there are no great examples I can cite here from professional players, basically because none of them make mistakes like losing a 3:1 fight due to positioning. If your opponent is in a positionally superior position, there are very very few circumstances where you would directly attack them. Stuff like chokepoints are a strong force multiplier on SC also. They just rarely make a difference in a fight, because the<b> threat</b> of the force multiplier is enough that the opponent often won't attack while you are in that position. I guess thats what I'm getting at.
Seriously, in Starcraft's early-game, getting a good zergling surround in a forced engagement can (and often does) dictate the course of the game.
<!--quoteo(post=1771639:date=May 19 2010, 07:07 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ May 19 2010, 07:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771639"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I always thought metagaming was where you cheat by memorising everything about the game and your opponent before you begin, in which case it would be rather easier in chess than it would in an RTS because a lot of competitive chess games are well documented and you can also apply psychology to your opponent because they're sitting across the table from you.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Metagaming in RTSs is, broadly speaking, using knowledge of mechanics and common strategies/builds to predict and counter what someone is doing.
i.e. if you see a certain set of buildings within x minutes you 'know' this means they are using tactic y which you can counter by doing z. You know this by your knowledge of common strategies, information not available within tne game. You are 'metagaming'.
<!--quoteo(post=1771684:date=May 19 2010, 08:37 PM:name=Ph0enix)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ph0enix @ May 19 2010, 08:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771684"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Metagaming in RTSs is, broadly speaking, using knowledge of mechanics and common strategies/builds to predict and counter what someone is doing.
i.e. if you see a certain set of buildings within x minutes you 'know' this means they are using tactic y which you can counter by doing z. You know this by your knowledge of common strategies, information not available within tne game. You are 'metagaming'.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes that would be consistent, and I still think it's easier in chess than in RTS games because chess has had huge amounts of work done in that area.
Does the scripting of the singleplayer RTSes annoy anyone else?
Recently I played C&C 3 GDI campaing. On one mission you're supposed to defend a base for a while, then charge out of it, rescue a pinned down convoy and return to base. Sounds like an interesting mission.
Too bad the scripting means that on hard difficulty it's extremely difficult to rescue the convoy quickly. If you manage to fight yourself to convoy with one force while defending the base with another force, the scripting suddenly kicks in and fills the return route buildings with anti-convoy infantry and starts pushing the base harder. So, instead of trying to rescue the convoy, the walkthroughs seem to leave it sitting there in the middle of the enemy zone without any real defence. AI is not going to do a thing to destroy it at that point. The walkthroughs then proceed to slowly destroy every opponent base in the region and then drive the convoy home without any resistance.
After seeing the walkthrough, I felt I got punished for using common sense on figuring out how the mission should go.
Scripting is the only thing that makes most RTS games worth doing, it forces variety which you don't get otherwise because if you give people the same units and objectives each round, the winning procedure is always the same.
<!--quoteo(post=1771909:date=May 22 2010, 08:22 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ May 22 2010, 08:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771909"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Scripting is the only thing that makes most RTS games worth doing, it forces variety which you don't get otherwise because if you give people the same units and objectives each round, the winning procedure is always the same.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I wouldn't mind a bit of scripting here and there to keep things interesting. However, it shouldn't go to a point where the higher difficulties are all about learning how the level is scripted.
A good scripted level might be something where the enemy keeps getting stronger for an explained reason, does something unusual because it's explainable. Enemy switching gears up the exact moment you hit a map specific trigger isn't that. It discourages making progress and trying to think along the actual situation.
In the GDI mission I described, the enemy could have
a) Crushed the convoy b) Fortified the whole city area I'm supposed to breach c) Probably crushed my base
But no, it just had its soldiers idle in the base until I hit the specific trigger and then mobilized against my already barely alive convoy guards. I felt like the AI was just toying with me in a bad way.
Comments
Unless you're trying to compete at a pro or near pro level you don't have to catch up to that level. The best thing about battle.net 2.0 is the ladder and matchmaking system. Once the game is flushed with everyone who buys it you'll have no problem finding games around your skill level.
For a large amount of players, it doesn't matter. It only really becomes an issue with getting perfect timings for very advanced build orders. The point I was trying to make, is that building placement is much more important than the quoted posted was trying to make out. And sure, beginners can catch up (I've managed to, 1v1 Gold, 2v2 Plat) its just a case of patience, and putting in the effort required to learn.
I totally agree with SentrySteve's post, the ladder system is very good for matching players of equal skill.
Really, your progression of learning should go something like this
1) Do I know what units/buildings do what?
2) Do I know what units tend to counter what? Army composition thoughts.
3) Can I macro? (expand, mine, keep very few resources sitting around, have enough money for what you need when you need it, supply)
3.5) Basic micro? (don't auto-attack entire army!)
4) Can I time stuff? (I expect my enemy to have <insert units here> and I will need <insert counter unit here>)
5) Crazy advanced micro stuffs and specific uber 10sec builds.
Personally, I'm somewhere around... learning 3 and 3.5. =]
<!--quoteo(post=1771438:date=May 16 2010, 04:08 PM:name=NeonSpyder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeonSpyder @ May 16 2010, 04:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1771438"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I found Company of Heroes to be curiously refreshing as far as the RTS genre goes.
The way it used capture points as area-control + resource acquisition made territory-holding matter a lot more then it does in a lot of other games. Also even after playing for many months I only rarely got a sense of ah... boredom? The build orders were fairly up in the air, as far as I knew (and witnessed in ranked games) there were a few REALLY early build choices such as going for lots of engineers to rush-cap some points or set up roadblocks... but aside from that it seemed like there were only 'general strategies' that focused on a particular combination of units or loose build order.
I'll admit though that it was very annoying when for a while there everyone and their mother would just spam rangers. That was especially frustrating because it worked so well against even an entrenched and well balanced army. Think they fixed that though.
My original point was that the game was not as predictable as something like Starcraft, and that was a major point in it's favour.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I never got the nuances of CoH. Probably because I suck at micro and CoH tended to have quite the emphasis on that aspect. Either that or I was trying to micro when I should have been working on my micro... but keeping my dudes in cover and overlapping fire is soooo fun to fiddle with while I amass unknowingly 700+ fuel that I shouldn't spent on tanks.
That being said, I think the "refreshing" aspect was that everyone was equally confused. I'm sure in higher level play there were much more defined build orders, transitions, and such just like in SC1 (and developing in SC2 at an alarming rate) but we all were noobs and didn't know what to do. My buddy who watched upper tier play can confirm that. But yes, control points, imo, are an awesome game mechanic instead of mine mah minerals.
Depends on the game, some RTS games have the base building as half the challenge because you have a complex economy to manage, some of them just make you put buildings everywhere.
In all RTS games though bases serve a purpose, they mark an area of the map as your staging point, if you can't build something that does that it removes a fairly big part of the game, because you stop fighting from your base to the enemy base and instead just run around killing random people, it's the difference between deathmatch and CTF.
Personally I find games that don't have a sufficiently developed fortification mechanic kinda dull, I like company of heroes and it has simple base building, but complex fortification mechanics, you have a few base buildings but quite in-depth defences for them. I don't hugely like dawn of war 2 because you just get a HQ and a couple of starting turrets, and the entire map gets reduced to ash in about ten minutes, so it's not very interesting.
It's different for each side, but the build orders aren't just in the buildings, it's in the units, upgrades, movements between tiers, and so on too. There's quite a bit of variation especially in the mid game and late game. Early game there are only a few popular options but you do have room to experiment because even on the pro level having an SCV idle for 4 seconds won't kill you the way it will in Starcraft 2, so you see some innovative stuff by the pros in terms of early game too.
Think about it. There is no chance in Starcraft, everything boils down to raw calculations of damage over hitpoints without variation.
In something like CoH there are many modifiers that affect how a battle will turn out. Percentile chance to hit for example, modified by cover and I believe there's even a range component. Chance like that is a part of every unit from the engineers to the tanks. And with tanks they have another fun layer of armor that needs to be calculated out according to angles and such.
I believe that gives CoH something of a more 'messy' and unpredictable quality. Even knowing the intimate details of the game doesn't change the possibility that in this particular battle your troops might just be unlucky as hell and screw up a fight they should have won. That could never happen in starcraft as that game boils down to target-priority and micro, which it could be argued is more representative of 'skill' by the player... but I prefer the kind of unpredictable game you get from CoH. Don't get me wrong, an understanding of the game's mechanics serves you very very well in CoH as you can make decisions about your troops that put them in the best possible situation.
This is particularly true. Remember that the only reason chess is strategically interesting is because we lack the capacity to fully enumerate all possible outcomes from our moves to find the global best move right now. We can only think 6-10 moves ahead, and only then by branching shallowly from our intended course.
Strategy enters in because we now have to consider our opponent and take chances or attempt to mitigate damage if we're wrong. We're forced to consider the unknown.
But, as of course you know, Chess is a perfect-knowledge game. Any game like that can, mathematically, be reduced to a perfect strategy.
In chess, you can see what your opponent is doing. Both sides have to play a reactionary game as well as advancing their own agenda.
In even the most elite top-level RTS, there's a lot of luck and metagaming. Since the opening of a Starcraft game is blind and your opening moves *DO* decide your later ones, you have to have a general plan on what you're going towards to defeat your enemy before you even know what he's doing. Time is of the essence and scouting to see what they're doing and then reacting to it is more often than not a futile effort, because you've fallen behind the power curve.
RTS games are on a completely inferior level compared to chess.
Cue RTS elitists telling me I'm too stupid to understand what I'm seeing, and that when Jaedong (or whoever the ###### these idiots are) desperately built some unit to counter the unit his opponent built but lost because it was too late, that's what I see: "You planned to encounter X, but you encountered Y, so you lose". I'm not nearly lame enough to actually watch more than a handful of these insipid things, but I've NEVER seen a high-level Starcraft game involve a combined mix of units working in unison to play off their own strengths and weaknesses. Instead they mostly involve a massive glut of one specific type (ie: a ######ton of mutalisks, or vultures, or whatever) with a few support role units thrown in (dropships, arbiters).
The 'massive glut of unit type opponent can't counter' is so much a part of competitive RTS that there's a pretty large amount of units that very rarely if ever get used (Protoss Scouts?). In most games, you don't even need most of your tech tree because the Rock-Paper-Scissors aspect plays in your favor.
So no. That's not strategy. That's glorified dice-rolling. The only 'skill' part I see in Starcraft doesn't involve strategy at all - it involves ridiculous clicking skills and hand-eye-coordination. Yes that's impressive, and that's mostly how individual battles are won, that's a skill aspect.
But that's not strategy. RTS games are not strategic.
While for RTS games like Starcraft and C&C (at least C&C >3), for the most part I would agree. But then there are unique RTS' like Homeworld (note: NOT Homeworld 2) that really defined strategic use of ships, IMO. Steamrolling someone with a large number of Unit X is almost impossible in Homeworld unless your opponent had just started playing or is just really, really slow. Every ship has a counter to the point where if they face that counter, they will likely lose, no matter how many ships of their own type they face. If you don't have Support Frigates, for example, your fighters will run out of fuel if they're too far from your carrier/mothership... but if you don't defend the Support Frigates, the fighters become useless. If you don't kill the Assault Frigates defending the opponents Capital Ships first, your bombers will get taken out in a couple seconds.
I don't know about Starcraft, but in C&C if you have enough of Unit X, you're probably going to defeat Counter Y anyways, unless that is, they have more or the same amount of units as you. While sure, spamming units is a Strategy, its not what Strategy games were intended for, IMO.
The point of this being that the strategy in Starcraft is so simple that the most optimal moves and counter-moves have been mapped out by now, and the tactics is also heading down that route .... its on the same level as any other board-based strategy game where there simply is a mathematically optimal way of playing. With Checkers we've found that mathematically optimal strategy because it is a simple game, with Chess we haven't because of pure mathematical complexity - we can't crunch enough numbers yet to work out what it is.
Now, once you take that into account, aswell as the other pivotal factor that the game is played in real-time versus turn-based, what you get is pretty obvious - a strong reliance on mechanics over strategy. If you played Chess in real-time ... do you think the grand-master who makes 1 move every 10 seconds would win, or the rookie who makes 1 move every second? Mechanics is an important and integral component of <b>all</b> real-time games.
To say that "RTS games are on a completely inferior level compared to chess." is pretty ignorant in my opinion. Yes they are comparable; yes they are very, very different games. It's like comparing tennis to soccer, they both have very different defining characteristics, they both also have a bunch of stuff which is directly comparible.
I think the point I'm trying to get at here, is that if Starcraft would be a perfect-knowledge game (no fog of war) then yeah it would most likely be <b>extremely</b> mechanics-oriented, because the high-level strategy is very simple, whereas the high-level tactics is very complex. The insane micromanagement, the multi-tasking, the build-orders and rock-paper-scissors builds and counterbuilds ... thats all tactics, not strategy. I would argue that in an average game of Starcraft, no more than about 10 actual strategic decisions are made, whereas tactical decisions are made by the dozens every minute.
If you want true strategy over tactics and mechanics, go play Rome:Total War or something =|
I always thought the entire appeal of chess was that the game itself is largely immaterial, instead you get to play competitive psychoanalysis and the chessboard is just there to give you an excuse.
I totally agree that Starcraft (and a lot of RTS games) are more about tactics than strategy. In fact, I've argued that some FPS games like the Battlefield series are more strategic than most RTS games. in both games/genres, when and where and what you attack with makes a difference, but in Battlefield, flanking is much more helpful, as is strategic positioning in general. There are choke points in Starcraft, sure, but effectively what matters is how many units of what type each player in a confrontation has (and who has the better micro). In Battlefield, strategic position is an incredible force multiplier.
Of course, in Battlefield, you don't generally have any control over what your other "units" do =p
Stuff like chokepoints are a strong force multiplier on SC also. They just rarely make a difference in a fight, because the<b> threat</b> of the force multiplier is enough that the opponent often won't attack while you are in that position. I guess thats what I'm getting at.
Seriously, in Starcraft's early-game, getting a good zergling surround in a forced engagement can (and often does) dictate the course of the game.
Metagaming in RTSs is, broadly speaking, using knowledge of mechanics and common strategies/builds to predict and counter what someone is doing.
i.e. if you see a certain set of buildings within x minutes you 'know' this means they are using tactic y which you can counter by doing z. You know this by your knowledge of common strategies, information not available within tne game. You are 'metagaming'.
i.e. if you see a certain set of buildings within x minutes you 'know' this means they are using tactic y which you can counter by doing z. You know this by your knowledge of common strategies, information not available within tne game. You are 'metagaming'.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes that would be consistent, and I still think it's easier in chess than in RTS games because chess has had huge amounts of work done in that area.
Recently I played C&C 3 GDI campaing. On one mission you're supposed to defend a base for a while, then charge out of it, rescue a pinned down convoy and return to base. Sounds like an interesting mission.
Too bad the scripting means that on hard difficulty it's extremely difficult to rescue the convoy quickly. If you manage to fight yourself to convoy with one force while defending the base with another force, the scripting suddenly kicks in and fills the return route buildings with anti-convoy infantry and starts pushing the base harder. So, instead of trying to rescue the convoy, the walkthroughs seem to leave it sitting there in the middle of the enemy zone without any real defence. AI is not going to do a thing to destroy it at that point. The walkthroughs then proceed to slowly destroy every opponent base in the region and then drive the convoy home without any resistance.
After seeing the walkthrough, I felt I got punished for using common sense on figuring out how the mission should go.
I wouldn't mind a bit of scripting here and there to keep things interesting. However, it shouldn't go to a point where the higher difficulties are all about learning how the level is scripted.
A good scripted level might be something where the enemy keeps getting stronger for an explained reason, does something unusual because it's explainable. Enemy switching gears up the exact moment you hit a map specific trigger isn't that. It discourages making progress and trying to think along the actual situation.
In the GDI mission I described, the enemy could have
a) Crushed the convoy
b) Fortified the whole city area I'm supposed to breach
c) Probably crushed my base
But no, it just had its soldiers idle in the base until I hit the specific trigger and then mobilized against my already barely alive convoy guards. I felt like the AI was just toying with me in a bad way.