Strategy games

[Sardonac]

I am finding it harder and harder to play strategy games. I have played my share of mainstream RTS and not-R TS. From Shogun Total War to Company of heroes I'm pretty well versed in the art of management however as I said before it's getting harder and harder for me to play.

Let's go back to the beginning (1998):
Back in 1998, that legendary year for computer games that knocked our sock off, a game called Myth 2: Soulblighter came out. It was rated tenth on gamespot's top ten games of the year (falling behind starcraft, deus ex and a few others). The game is mainly unique in that it has zero resource management. Zero. No points, no wood, no food, no "redstone" or spice - just zero. According to Wikipedia this trait classifies the game as Real Time Tactics (RTT) but whatever.

Now I struggle with resources. Not in that they're difficult to manage or that I don't understand the concept but I inevitably start to feel whilst sending four workers/peasants/peons/slaves/underlings to gather a resource a powerful sense of "What am I doing?" That gets me started on "Why do I play games? To have fun? Is managing resources fun? If not, then why must it be a necessary evil in games?" and it continues. It's now up to the point where I will not touch a game like Warcraft 3 (never played surprisingly) because it's so resource based.

Any ideas? Is this a justifiable view?

 

[TsunamiWombat]

The Myth series were way ahead of their times. Only now are they coming around to the non base management trend. Company of Hero's, and the upcoming Dawn of War 2, are prime examples of this. Dawn of War removed alotof resource mining for "point" capturing but still had a resource/research system. DoW 2 should be alot different and promises to focus on squads and tactics.

 

[Thaliur]

I feel your pain.
I think the extensive resource management clutter like in Starcraft or Warcraft originated from people who forgot the purpose of games, which is - as you said - having fun, as opposed to working.

Some games found a nice way to compromise between resource management and pure tactics, but they somehow got lost in the past.

KKND - Krossfire:
Here you start out depending on oil as your main income (which is collected in the form of energy, by being brought to power plants or converters), but as you develop your base, you will gain access to alternative energy forms like biogas (gathered from giant pigs in pens), sunlight (obvious) or wind power, depending on your faction. Once you got these new power plants in place, you can pretty much forget about oil. You'll still need to protect them though.

The War Of The Worlds:
This game takes place on a map of England, divided into sectors. Once you conquer one of these sectors (in tactical gameplay mode) you will be able to place resource buildings (generating copper, heavy elements and blood if you play the Martians or coal, ore and fuel if you play England). These will not, as in most strategy games, incease some obscure counter, but just improve your factories' and units' efficiency (movement and production speed mainly). You can play the whole game without placing one of those buildings.

 

[Sardonac]

Thanks for the tips guys. If anybody is interested in downloading myth 1/2/3 they're all on demonoid. And don't feel bad about downloading them, the online servers were dropped by the developers years ago so the games are entirely player operated and, with all the thirds party stuff, player made.

 

[Danny Ocean]

I've never had problems gathering resources. However, in games where I do I tend to turtle. I remember this one game of Age Of Empires where 150/200 total population was peasants.

I had a LOT of towers.

 

[SmugFrog]

World in Conflict is one hell of a game. The single player campaign is well put together, and the multiplayer games are a blast. The game never really took off as it should have though; I blame poor advertising. A few videos of this game would have got the word out a little better.

 

[B4D 9R4MM3R]

I hate gathering resources just because I am so bad at it. I've never gotten used to guarding my harvesters/miners, and I always seem to run out of money faster than the computer even if I focus on economy early.

Probably why I still play 'MechCommander Gold every now and then. I'm not that good at it either, but I never have to worry about resources.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

I like World in Conflict, but there's no depth to it. I enjoyed the single player, but that made multiplayer a bore. And once you've seen that nuke go off for the tenth time in as many minutes, it somehow loses it's appeal.

Then again, my favorite game is Age of Empires... where depth runs deep.

 

[clarinetJWD]

I like World in Conflict, but there's no depth to it. I enjoyed the single player, but that made multiplayer a bore. And once you've seen that nuke go off for the tenth time in as many minutes, it somehow loses it's appeal.

Then again, my favorite game is Age of Empires... where depth runs deep.

Agreed. I played the WiC single player campaign, and it was one of the best I've seen in an RTS (admittedly, that's like being the world's tallest midget...most strategies have awful stories), but the multiplayer is less...fun.

I prefer the resource heavy RTS games myself, probably because I started on Qge of Empires and Starcraft. My current favorite is Rise of Nations, which has a very unique resource system that I really like.

 

[SmugFrog]

I'm just curious if you guys didn't like WiC's multiplayer because of the lack of base building or the ability to "turtle"? It is certainly much different than other games, and it takes a good team to have a fun time on it.

 

[RetiarySword]

Try company of Heroes, that game requires no resource management.

 

[LordCraigus]

If you don't like unit building and resource management you should look into the Real-Time Tactics genre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_real-time_tactics_video_games

 

[H0ncho]

I dislike RTTs for the reason that there is waaay to much micro in them, and more importantly it removes the feeling of building up something. If all units are available from the start, like in world in conflict, getting that heavy tank doesn't feel special. Contrast this with COH - the ostwind gives me a little hard-on every time I surprise my friend with it . SupCom's experimentals gives me a better feeling still. The reason is that it always feels better to get something you have really worked for.

Also the economy is an important aspect of a sttrategy game. Rush or increase income? It's a strategic consideration that adds to the game.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

I'm just curious if you guys didn't like WiC's multiplayer because of the lack of base building or the ability to "turtle"? It is certainly much different than other games, and it takes a good team to have a fun time on it.

I do like base building and turtling, but that's just the tip of the ice-berg. There's not much depth to WiC, by which I mean there are not many units and not many interesting ways to use those units. There is no upgrading, no advancement, no base-building. Most importantly, there aren't really many differing strategies to employ.

I definitely see the appeal, but it's not my type. It's the depth involved in a strategy game, that feeling of always learning new things, that keeps me interested. WiC is a pretty bare-bones strategy game.

 

[Sardonac]

Try company of Heroes, that game requires no resource management.

Actually it does. The game forces you to take spots to accumulate "points." In Myth, for example, you start with whatever units are available in the level and go. You can heal occasionally but that's all you have.

And to the critics of RTT having to much micro, play myth 3. That game, of the myth series, has the least micromanagement and incorporates terrain more than the other two games. Regarding the Total War series, I love those games. With worse units it's still possible to win. Even with a poor city, good tactics are what make the game, not money/denari/gold.

 

[Limasol]

The difference that i see between resource RTS's and non-resource RTS's is that one is like chess where both sides can pay for more pawns (Red Alert games, Dawn of War 1, warcraft etc) While the other is more tense and can be instantly won or lost on single brilliant tactic (Dawn of War 2, company of heroes, world in conflict) I like both myself

 

[Aurora219]

I'm a complete turtle myself. I play the SuperWeapon General in Generals. I'm Nod with Obelisks and stealth in Tib Sun. I'm UEF in Supcom for the big-ass cannons.

I feel a little at a loss if I don't have reinforcements. But at the same time, it focuses me and makes me a lot more efficient. Especially in Total War.