RTS - Strategy....oooor not?

[DM.]

As long as rushing is a legitimate Strategy in any game, Strategy still goes right out the window.

 

[Ushario]

Dictionary.com:

1. In military usage, a distinction is made between strategy and tactics. Strategy is the utilization, during both peace and war, of all of a nation's forces, through large-scale, long-range planning and development, to ensure security or victory. Tactics deals with the use and deployment of troops in actual combat.

The only videogames with a bit of real strategy in them (I can think of) are the Total War series, with that big map of theirs.

Civilisation is all strategy but it is also turn based.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Civilisation is all strategy but it is also turn based.

Aaa stupid me, how could I've forgotten about the Civ serie. Never really played that though. Maybe The Settlers as well? At least the older games, I only bought Rise of an Empire in an opwelling, it was quite fun but was far from strategic.

 

[kylejj91]

As long as rushing is a legitimate Strategy in any game, Strategy still goes right out the window.

Explain to me why it isn't.

This is manly coming from my experience with SC but rushing is a very risky all in strategy and the easiest to counter. If you opponent doesn't have the foresight to send a scout and see what you doing it's his own fault that he loses to a rush that he's not ready for. With the best time to attack is when your opponent is when he's not ready for it. Also with failed rushes usually ending with the attacker not being able to recover I see it as fair.

Also let me state that I get very irritated when I hear people complain about early game rushes/tech rushes. When is it right and honorable to attack a person in a rts game, do I ask them politely and we both come out and have our selves a little war on a hill and finish up with tea at dawn.

From what I've seen, the people I see complain about "rushing" are the same people that like to watch there base for 30mins building cannons/towers all with out moving out of their starting point, then try to build a group of the biggest end game unit they can and push out and attack around the 45min to tomorrow mark.

It does suck to lose to a rush your not ready for (I know), but all that means is next time you should learn from it and be ready for it. Not cry to the other person in game or on a message bored/forum.

In the end you want to use a strategy that will give you the best chance of winning. If you opponent doesn't know how to handle a rush, use it. If all you opponent knows how to do is rush, counter it. The goal is to win.

No one complains about head shots in a fps.

 

[the Tadman]

StarCraft is the biggest example of much needed strategy. Who cares if you have a 100 hydralisks! A well places spider mine field can wipe em' out in seconds.

 

[Valkraye]

I am a HUGE RTS and Battlefield fan and can understand where the OP is coming from. Much of the RTS's that are around these days are one where you can simply exploit certain issues or spam units, rush a base etc etc. To me these tactics make a game boring, so I have stuck to the Total War series for my strategy games.

But yes, there is a huge range of tactics involved in the battlefield games. Though the execution is different. Where as really good game of Battlefield will have a competent commander who has the traditional RTS "God View" and the ability to give orders etc etc. In many cases the battlefield games are a greater representation of real-time strategy with real people on the attack, functioning together and is an all together funner experience if you have a good team and a good commander.

I love both series and enjoy both immensely; but they are two different kinds of games. The Total War style RTS games are all about using statistics to overcome statistics and orchestrate campaigns and fights on scales Battlefield games will never reach. Battlefield style games with the strategy/FPS mix are all about the one-on-one, man-on-man fights that have many more variables then a traditional RTS does.

One is about being "God", one is about being down on the field and commanding - both are incredible fun.

 

[DM.]

As long as rushing is a legitimate Strategy in any game, Strategy still goes right out the window.

Explain to me why it isn't.

This is manly coming from my experience with SC but rushing is a very risky all in strategy and the easiest to counter. If you opponent doesn't have the foresight to send a scout and see what you doing it's his own fault that he loses to a rush that he's not ready for. With the best time to attack is when your opponent is when he's not ready for it. Also with failed rushes usually ending with the attacker not being able to recover I see it as fair.

Also let me state that I get very irritated when I hear people complain about early game rushes/tech rushes. When is it right and honorable to attack a person in a rts game, do I ask them politely and we both come out and have our selves a little war on a hill and finish up with tea at dawn.

From what I've seen, the people I see complain about "rushing" are the same people that like to watch there base for 30mins building cannons/towers all with out moving out of their starting point, then try to build a group of the biggest end game unit they can and push out and attack around the 45min to tomorrow mark.

It does suck to lose to a rush your not ready for (I know), but all that means is next time you should learn from it and be ready for it. Not cry to the other person in game or on a message bored/forum.

In the end you want to use a strategy that will give you the best chance of winning. If you opponent doesn't know how to handle a rush, use it. If all you opponent knows how to do is rush, counter it. The goal is to win.

No one complains about head shots in a fps.

Rushing IS a legitimate Strategy, I've won quite alot of C&C games by just Engineer rushing with 3 tanks distracting them, and have the same problem with people complaining about it when they just build defences.

It might be due to the fact that I only seem to get matches against people who want to build everything before they attack that I think it is the best.

 

[Kstreitenfeld]

Real RTS games (read, PC RTS games) are more then just rushing, steamrolling and teching. Each game has it's own little quirks that you hardly need to be a pro to understand.

 

[Disaster Button]

Dawn of war: Having to make up your army of different units was an important part of the game and with some factions there was a lot of strategy. Teleporting in warp spiders for hit and run attacks, deep-striking terminators behind the enemy to diver their fire.

Are you insane? Every match I've ever played consisted of everyone (including myself) of picking a couple unit types and just storming them into the battle. Usually works best and makes it more fun being that its a game of WAAAAAAGH

Now, Dawn of War 2? That's a game with actual stratergy (usually)

 

[Kstreitenfeld]

As long as rushing is a legitimate Strategy in any game, Strategy still goes right out the window.

That comment makes no sense, it should say "If rushing cannot be countered, legitimate strategy goes right out the window."

Rushing is a type of strategy, it may be a fairly simple strategy but it is one none the less. Real strategy games will have ways to rush opponents and ways to counter it.

-edit-
typo fix

 

[Erana]

Yeah, RTSs are all about learning timing, pattern, and what not. I'm suprised that I'm horrible at them, given that I can coordinate a dinner party...

 

[Pandalisk]

Dawn of war: Having to make up your army of different units was an important part of the game and with some factions there was a lot of strategy. Teleporting in warp spiders for hit and run attacks, deep-striking terminators behind the enemy to diver their fire.
SW Empire at war: Micro-management was key to that game, sending the right unit against the right enemy.
So yes there's a lot of strategy, some games are just steamrolling but the best ones are a bit different.

True enough but nothing stands in the way of a twenty caped imperial guardsmen horde equipped with Grenade launchers and all leaders attached, such is the folly of the game you can reinforce the majority of your forces as they shoot them down, its quite entertaining.

Try endwar or the total war series, but calvary usually wins the day, just like in those times, and pike men arnt as effective as you'd think they should be, as for endwar, whoever takes the centre Point at the start usually wins

 

[Ron51]

I'm amazed no ones mentioned games like Hearts of Iron or Theatre of War.

Guys, there are plenty of games out there that not only offer plenty of tactical options, but games that completely drop the arbitrary nonsensical tactics of classic RTS games in favour of real world tactics and laws. Basebuilding? healthbars? rifles killing tanks! bah!

Go out and play these games lads; Theatre of War 2, Men of War, Soliders: Heroes of world war 2, and Hearts of Iron 2. I especially recommend theatre of war and hearts of iron, both first rate. They're all 3D so you can all enjoy them.

Theres this whole genre that people ignore because its too hard to get into or something, but its so satisfying, it sounsd horrible having to read a book on german infantyr tactics to beat a mission, but thats real strategy, not gamey simplifications.

All love to soliders, the best RTS that no one played.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

As long as rushing is a legitimate Strategy in any game, Strategy still goes right out the window.

That comment makes no sense, it should say "If rushing cannot be countered, legitimate strategy goes right out the window."

Rushing is a type of strategy, it may be a fairly simple strategy but it is one none the less. Real strategy cames will have ways to rush opponents and ways to counter it.

I'm inclined to agree with this. The rush is an important option available, and to be honest it's also an incredibly dangerous one to try. What's more is that many RTS games revolve heavily around economic warfare for much of the actual strategy of the game. C&C 3 gives a pretty good example - NOD is utterly incapable of simply standing toe to toe and slugging it out with NDI in an even numbers fight. The one thing you really have on your side is the ability of NOD to hit and run. If you aren't constantly harrassing your opponents harvesters (and I mean from the instant you can build a few attack bikes onward), chances are you're setting yourself up to lose.

In most RTS games the only strategies that are really used revolve around the essential plan by which someone approaches a battle. The most common new player strategy, bourne from the single player campaign that fosters this line of thinking is the concept of turtling. If one lets a player fully turtle, it's often damn near impossible to effectively assault without resorting to using superweapons to punch a hole in the defenses (or just hoping you have overwhelming strength in numbers) making the rush the single best strategic option available to another player.

This goes right up there with people complaining about the option of having the ability to simply spam a unit and claim victory. Sure, one always has the option of simply spamming tank, but the counter point is such a tactic is easily defeated (in C&C the solution to tank spam is rocket infantry spam). So long as the game is properly balanced, every unit has something that it's terribly vulnerable to. And as for the complaints that final assaults often boil down to simple "build a million units and send them forward", one would be hard pressed to argue. In most single player RTS campaigns, the game rewards the turtle and hammer style of play wherein a player builds an impenetrable defense while building up an unstoppably huge army. Unfortunately, because this is ulimately so successful in single player, the strategy is often carried over to multiplayer where it leaves a bitter taste in the new player's mouth.

Like anybody who's ever played such a game online, my initial attempts at playing C&C online were met with the same results everyone else faces - either I was murdered in a rush, or we both turtled six ways from tuesday and hoped for the best. But as I played the game more I began to understand that this simply wasn't the only way to play. Eventually I began to understand that they key to victory in C&C lay not in impenetrable defenses or crushing numbers of units, it lay in the unassuming ore trucks. Once I started incorportaing economic warfare into the game I quickly began to realize something - the moment you force another player from the comfort zone and they're forced to actaully deal with your skirmishes the game often opened itself up quite a bit. In the end, I found that my final assaults were often completed with a mere handful of units simply delivered to the right place at the right time (and the occassional blob of infantry because It's hilarious to watch even when it doesn't work). Again, the depth of play might not be as great as in games like total war, but that doesn't mean there are no tactical options available.

Just because a game is fully capable of giving a player a "you're screwed" scenario doesn't mean there isn't any strategic or tactical thinking in play. Perhaps if there is absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent such an end, but even in SC, birth place of the most fabled of rushes (the zerg rush) you find that one is fully capable of stopping the rush. Sure, it may seem counter-intuitive to start building an army first rather than making base expansions, but it is only by preparing for war from the outset that one really has the capacity to defend themselves.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I'm amazed no ones mentioned games like Hearts of Iron or Theatre of War.

That's because they're actually strategy games, not tactical games where you win or lose based on your ability to micromanage braindead units.

You win or lose a battle in Hearts of Iron 2 a year before you fight it. That's strategy

 

[Ace of Spades]

I played Age of Empires 3 and my strategy was always to build a huge army made up of musketeers and Congreve Rockets, then march into the enemy Capitol, and burn it to the ground.

 

[Baby Tea]

The Total War series is not like that at all. You have to have tactics up the ass to win. Steamrolling rarely happens.

This.

I love the total war series for that exact reason. How many times have I stood on a hill with a paltry 300 or 400 men while an army of thousands marches up to meet me? Using the terrain and solid tactics, I was able to win again and again until I could get them reinforcements. Can't do that on Command and Conquer! And it makes for far more riveting gameplay! Suddenly those cheap units aren't so useless when you know that you can use them just right in order to survive.

Also, for something a bit newer, I'd say EndWar is actually pretty darn strategic. The small amount of units and their rock-paper-scissors attitude really means that one unit isn't going to roll everything. Even with a pile of experienced tanks, artillery, engineers, and gunships will blow them away, and other tanks will stand firm against them. And that goes with every other unit.

 

[Lordmarkus]

World in Conflict, man. You have limited supply of points to buy limited quantity of units. If they die, points are refunded. You can call in support and support points get accumulated by damaging enemy (support damage also counts).

In multiplayer, there is four positions: Infantry commander, Armor commander (tanks), Air commander (helicopters) and Support commander (AA,artillery,and repairmen). Air beats Armor, Support beats Air, Armor beats Support, Infantry rules in woods and cities. Simple, yet unusual and entertaining.

Couldn't say it better myself. Other than that I can't say that much since I only own and only intend to own World in Conflict and Company of Heroes.

Though you can't really succesfully steamroll in either of the games. In CoH you WILL be taken down rather fast and though it's easier to steam roll in WiC you either drive into either choppers (tankcommander), tanks (supportcommander) or a tactical nuclear device.