Does anyone feel a sense of morality when playing an RTS?

[Shadefyre]

Honestly it depends on whether the RTS gives you the option to heal/repair units. If it does, and my force is outnumbered or getting decimated, I'll pull back and heal up my units that survive. But I don't really feel any sort of moral attachment to my units, unless they're unique on-off ones or heroes. Or, in the case of C+C RA2, units that have fully ranked.

 

[ShyWinter]

Now that you mention it...yeah. I do feel a sense of morality in RTS. I always feel like I fail an in game mission when my casualties outweigh the enemy's. It is still just a game, but in Company of Heroes, for example, when one of my units is killed I say "that was my fault. I should have been more prepared. He didn't need to die." I even avoid letting a totally useless unit die in RTS games; I find a spot where it can act like a listening post. In COH, I let armor push in first to soak up the bullets and later be repaired rather than replaced.

Other games offer droids and robots, fuck 'em, they can get shot up all day for all I care; they're not human.

As for what side I play, it makes no difference to me. I don't feel guilty about playing as Soviets or the Empire from Star Wars or the Nazis (provided I'm not guarding a concentration camp). Soldiers aren't necessarily embodiments of their administration, they're guys (and girls) doing their duty.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

I wouldn't say morality but I do feel a pang of guilt sending a group of footsoldiers into the maw knowing that their only purpose is to weaken the enemy numbers a bit and that none of them will come back alive. At least they can die well and take a few of the enemy with them.

 

[needsmosleep]

I dont know about feeling pathos for my units, but espically in Sc, i like to round up all the units with the most kills and send em to the back

 

[Graustein]

Last RTS I played was Company of Heroes, and I felt an attachment to my troops, not for any moral reasons (I played Axis more often than I played Allies), but because of the economy system of the game, which made that kind of thing unfeasible. In a game where tanks are both majorly powerful against the right units and destroyed in second if you turn your back, all the while being so expensive that they're impossible to amass unless you have an ally who's got your back, you can't help being careful.

On the other hand, in Advance Wars, I would use Sami or Sensei and shamelessly build millions of Mechs to send to their deaths and overwhelm the enemy. I was a big fan of the mech flood, which led my friends to compare me to General Haig.

 

[shotfun9]

I know this doesn't count as an RTS, but whenever I'm playing Advance Wars the image in my head is some odd hybrid of the actual battle animations and the Normandy scene of Saving Private Ryan. I always feel bad when my poor red soldiers are just blown away to the left.

 

[Dealin Burgers]

I've definetely noticed my lack of morality when i sacrificed units purely because they had been damaged and i didn't like that their red and yellow display picture stood out against all my healthy greens.

 

[Saskwach]

If I had any moral gualms with simulated people dying at my hand I wouldn't be clinically addicted to Defcon.

 

[Orion Magus]

In RTS games I tend to think of my units/buildings as an extension of my will and therefore not subject to the concept of morality as individual entities. Losing a platoon of troops amounts to the same thing as a skinned knee, not exactly a pleasant sensation but to be expected during a scuffle.

That having been said I rarely just throw my units into the meet grinder needlessly, but that is just more resource management than actual caring.

 

[DominantGiraffe]

Depends entirely on the voice-acting. I really don't care about Terran Marines or SupCom robots, they're emotionless retards whom I don't care about at all. But in Company of Heroes, hearing the panicky voice work for the last man in a squad makes me think twice about sacrificing him...the more humanity you attach to something, the more human I treat them, I guess.

 

[MercFox1]

I raised the population limit in Rise of Nations today just so I could send more Main Battle Tanks and Marine Infantry to their irradiated, sunken, massacred deaths, and I enjoy watching huge armies annihilate each other if it's a game like Supreme Commander or Dawn of War.

However, I get pissed whenever my (Vaygr, if you're wondering) Battleships in Homeworld 2 get taken out. The manpower and resources that just go to waste... ;(

And, since I've already introduced Rise of Nations, it's never fun to watch your cities get nuked right as Missile Shield is being researched.

I guess it depends on the nature of the units being sacrificed then; civilian or support units (such as Carriers or Builders/Harvester) I take much more offense to being destroyed than purely military units like battleships or tanks.

 

[ScreamingCrab]

Does anyone else feel terrible on Dawn of War, when playing and losing as the Imperial Guard? I hate it! All those desperate cries for help as I sit there in my own ineptness watching them all get cut to shreds. It's a bit like that for the Tau as well, mainly because I suck.

However, I care a fare bit less on C&C, but I will try to send badly damage infantry back to base. In my mind "they've seen enough". Also I don't like seeing my men die with one shot.

The majority of times however, I'm just a meat grinder. "Off you go!" I cry in a cheerfully British manner as my squad of ten men attempts to take down a fortified bunker position to save me time while I get more ore or whatever.

 

[kippers and biscuits]

The only RTS I have ever played seriosly is starcraft and I often used the tatic known as lingf***. This definatly discounts me from the moral side, though having said that, when I replayed KOTOR I tried to play darkside but I every time I had to be mean to people I felt really bad about it so I just played lightside again in the end.... I realise its not an RTS but it's the same kind of thing.

 

[CTU_Agent24]

lolz, i'm the same, not cause i feel for the bit's of code which resemble people, but i reackon it's more interesting to treat them as if they are real, and not try to get them killed. Love C&C generals - Every time a solider is injuried i send a full convoy in to get him back to base and heal him. Lolz. It's suprisingly fun to do this.

 

[Ultrajoe]

In DoW i play dark eldar

i cant really feel sorry for sadists

but i do feel sorry if i get them killed stupidly.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I do the same, in all RTS where my units just don't feel "expendable" - like in C&C, SC, and Supcom.

In Medieval, if 1 person dies, on my side, I get infuriated lol, I just think "DAMNIT! I could have spared that one, now I have to retrain, etc. etc." - but in Medieval 2 sometimes the AI messes up, and at those times, I'm not so sad that he's dead, and I just think "Whatever is wrong with you, you deserve to die for being so stupid."

In RTS where my units aren't treated like "Zerg" - then I will try my absolute hardest not to have ANY of them die. I'm just weird like that, I like seeing "0 units lost" at the end of the game.

 

[ScreamingCrab]

I do the same, in all RTS where my units just don't feel "expendable" - like in C&C, SC, and Supcom.

Are there supposed to be people in the tanks? I thought the commander was the only human and the rest were all computer directed?

If there were people in those tanks then I'm going to computer game hell.

I like your justification for Death By Stupidity though. I'm a bit like that on some games. Any game, for instance, where a unit decides to follow another back to a base bristling with troops and defense cannons is probably better off dead at any rate.

 

[Singing Gremlin]

It's only really happened to me once. Playing stronghold 2, when I raided a castle and sent my lads in to slaughter everyone, including the civvies round the fire. The screams gave me a bit of a guilt trip, actually.

 

[Fire Daemon]

I always feel sad when my men die. I try and keep as many of them alive as I can and just swamp the AI. This way I keep a lot of my men alive.

 

[ScreamingCrab]

It's nice that there's a future group of military generals who care. We should form our own government.